Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

How To Make Boring Businesses Exciting
By Jerry Bader (c) 2007

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone got as excited about your
company as you are? Unfortunately some businesses just aren't
very sexy; in fact, some businesses are downright boring. As a
consequence, companies that sell commodity products and routine
services tend to rely on presentations that load-up on features,
specifications, and statistics that may be relevant to
anal-retentive types, but hardly compelling to the vast majority
of your audience.

There is no reason why every company can't deliver an exciting
image to its audience; one that generates the kind of buzz and
excitement usually associated with companies like Apple,
Victoria's Secret, Benetton, Absolut Vodka, and Sony.

It may seem impossible to produce a whole lot of steam for
things like sand paper, accounting services, and facial tissue,
but thanks to the Web and it's extraordinary ability to deliver
multimedia content, even the most mundane offerings can get
hearts racing and the blogosphere blogging.

Emotional Experiences Connect

Let's take facial tissue as an example; it is one of the most
common, boring everyday products you can imagine. There is just
not much you can do to sell this stuff other than telling people
yours is softer and cheaper than the other guys, but then the
other guy is saying the same thing; the result, consumers buy
whatever is on sale. But wait, the clever fellows at
Kimberly-Clark instituted a brilliant website campaign for their
facial tissue, called "Kleenex - let it out."

The campaign zeros in on the emotional experience associated
with why people use facial tissue: to wipe away tears of joy or
sadness or maybe to clean-up cute little runny noses - in each
case the result of some moving event.

Tapping into this emotional association is key to the Kleenex
campaign and key to your new thinking on how to make your boring
stuff, exciting.

Video - The Best Way To Tell A Story

The Kleenex campaign features prominent videos of articulate
people telling their personal stories, all resulting in the need
to use a facial tissue.

A pregnant woman discusses the emotional impact of having a
child and as her eyes begin to tear, the interviewer hands her a
Kleenex. A second video features another well-spoken woman
talking about her return to New Orleans after the devastation of
hurricane Katrina. Again as the woman becomes emotional and
begins to cry, the interviewer hands her a tissue. Nothing more
needs to be said, this is very powerful story telling that
connects to the audience and delivers an image of the brand as
caring and sensitive; the exact kind of impression the company
wants to portray.

Even companies that aren't exactly dead-from-the-neck-up boring
can benefit from this approach. The Home Depot ran a series of
advertisements with a husband showing his wife a series of power
tools that he wanted. Rather than try to convince his wife, and
by association all the wives in the audience, that he needs
another expensive toy, the husband points to each tool and
states, "this is your new shelving unit" and "this one is
your new kitchen" - a far more dramatic and effective way to
make the case for a new purchase.

You can deliver the same kind of powerful marketing messages for
your own company by presenting Web-based videos that follow a
few very simple guidelines.

Six Steps To Turn Boring Into Exciting

1. Use People to Sell People

There is no substitute for people. Human beings are capable of
communicating with an enormous degree of nuance and subtlety,
using voice, expression, body language, and gesture; no
animation, avatar, or artificial substitute can take the place
of a real person for communicating meaningful, memorable
marketing messages.

With relatively easy-to-use production tools anyone can create a
video, but not necessarily one that delivers the message or
image that your company wants to present. We have seen far too
many poor quality efforts both on the Web and even on local
television, where company presidents with bad haircuts and
ill-fitting suits, uttering nonsense-riddled scripts in
zombie-like performances expose themselves to audiences
expecting more, much more.

Skilled performers communicate in very subtle ways to an
audience, and only the well-practiced professional has the
experience and capability to deliver the intended experience.
The cost of saving money by doing-it-yourself or with amateurs
can result in delivering an unintended message that may
undermine the impression and image you are trying to create.

2. Perception Is Reality - Use Scripted Professionals

You will notice that I described the women in the facial tissue
videos as articulate. Now I cannot tell you if these women were
actors or not, or that their powerful presentations were
scripted, but if I had to guess, I would say these very
effective videos were about as carefully produced and
constructed as the latest episode of 'Survivor' that by no
means makes them any less effective.

The point here is that perception is reality, and the
professional filmmaker knows how to tell a story and communicate
a message; and that is not the same thing as being able to turn
on a video camera.

3. Tell A Memorable Story

When we talk about companies telling their story, it is
important to distinguish between the company's history and the
emotional experiences generated by the product or service.

Company histories can make for interesting videos and can
produce a sense of trust associated with being in business for a
considerable length of time, but that sort of presentation does
not speak to the underlying emotional and psychological factors
that actually trigger a sale.

It is difficult but imperative that businesses understand that
marketing is not about you, or even the product or service,
it's about the audience.

Like the Kleenex videos and the Home Depot commercials, every
product and service that is purchased from your company
represents an experience, a story that relates to your
audience's aspirations and needs. It is the audience's story
that demonstrates credibility, clarifies purpose, penetrates
memory, and makes the message compelling.

4. Create An Emotional Experience

The vast majority of decisions we make are colored by the
emotional relevance associated with those decisions. No doubt
rational factors figure into our decision-making process, but
the pivotal factors that attract the use of one product over
another are emotional.

If you're not connecting to your audience on an emotional
level, then you are left with a commodity that can only be sold
on price and features, and unless you're a monopoly, there will
always be some competitor willing to offer your customers more
for less.

When presenting your product or service it is important to tap
into an emotional element that your audience can relate to as
its key purchasing decision factor. When people purchase boring
accounting services and software, what they're really buying is
an improved life style for their families. It really doesn't
matter what you sell, if you look hard enough, you can find the
emotional benefit that should be the central element of your
marketing message.

5. Create a Believable Relevant Personality

Part of the process of connecting with your audience is creating
an appropriate personality for your company. Many corporations
today believe in the cult of management personality but this is
a dangerous game. Your company needs a personality of it's own,
one that is distinctive and that will stand alone and not be
dependent on senior management's ego and self-promotion.

Web-video marketing campaigns provide a vehicle that allows
companies to create appropriate personalities that engage,
inform and entertain your audience in ways that establish your
identity and create the basis for a prosperous business
relationship.

Clever marketing can create a corporate personality but it is
imperative that you follow through and deliver that personality
in all aspects of your relationship with your audience.
Producing a campaign that promises one thing and a website,
staff, and product that delivers another is one of the easiest
ways to alienate customers.

6. Deliver A Critical Hot Button Moment

Web-video presentations need to focus on single issues that are
driven home by the addition of a hot button moment or punch
line. Remember you are telling your audience a story that needs
a beginning, middle and end. That story should build to climax
and deliver the point in a single memorable moment.

The era of point form slide presentations is dead, along with
the laundry list of benefits approach.

Creativity, personality, and the ability to communication and
develop an emotional connection to your audience through the use
of Web-video campaigns has the potential to turn even the most
lackluster company into a vibrant and exciting marketing
business.
================================================================
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design
firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and
http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com
or telephone (905) 764-1246.
================================================================

Copyright © 2007 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.