Yelling Into The Void

Every person who disagrees with your pitch, scrolls past your ad, or ignores your email is making a completely rational decision based on who they are and what they see. I used to think that was a failure of the intended audience, but then I realized it was valuable information being woefully underutilized.

Marketing at its core, is a generous act in the form of work that is helping someone solve a problem they actually have and not seeking the shortest path to customers for your products. There's an enormous gap between those two orientations, and almost every struggling brand is stuck on the wrong side of that line. Why is that?

1. Attention is priceless.
2. Trust is worth even more.

And each one can only be earned, making permission far more important than we are willing to acknowledge in the current marketing landscape. The privilege of delivering messages that are anticipated, personal, and relevant isn't given freely, and fewer of us than ever are taking the time to build toward it. Which is also why the best time to do a promotion is before you need it, and why waiting until you're desperate means you've already lost the plot.

Culture is simply "people like us do things like this." If you don't know who your people are, their worldview, their fears, their aspirations, you're shouting into a void and calling it a strategy. So, how can you increase the odds that you'll be heard? By telling a compelling and engaging story.

Stories are the original human technology, and we are wired for them in a way we are wired for almost nothing else. There are only a few widespread human needs, and the marketers who win are the ones who connect those needs to a narrative that resonates and then repeat it. Resilient strategies work better when we repeat our tactics more often than feels comfortable.

Make something worth talking about that will be missed when you're not there.