Please take a minute and imagine that everyone you spoke to remembered what your story.
If a new job opened up, you would be at top of mind. Or, if someone was looking for a business partner or a buyout, your company would be remembered.
Well, most people struggle with creating this magical, memorable idea,… but it isn’t their fault…
It’s a bandwidth problem. We are bombarded with marketing and information from the internet, the telephone, and every other form of media.
Yet, there are still messages and ideas that people remember and share. For example, what image pops into your mind when I say “this is your brain on drugs?” An egg in a frying pan. Or, what about “Where’s the Beef?” Wendy’s.
But what is their secret?
Don’t Make People Stutter
Take a second and say both of those messages aloud. “This is your brain on drugs,” and “Where’s the beef.” You may notice that it’s very easy to say – extremely easy in fact. You don’t have to think about pronunciation or anything like that. The words are familiar and easy to understand. The chances of you stuttering are almost zilch.
And, this brings me to my first rule. Whether you are writing for the written word or the spoken word, you need to ensure that people can say what you write because if they can’t say it, they won’t remember it and more importantly, they won’t say it.
Invade Your Audience’s Mind
“Where’s the Beef” and “This is Your Brain on Drugs” really gets people thinking. If they’re fast food eaters, they want to know why they’ve been cheated out of beef on their burger, whereas if they’re drug users, they want to know if their brain looks like the messed up egg. And, if you’re not in their target audience, these expressions still get you to think about the size of a burger and the look of a brain. It is almost like an invasion…
This leads me to my next rule. You need to invade your audience’s mind with your message and you do this by making it easy for them to picture. Just take a look at the opening sentence of this blog post… I invaded your mind and got you thinking about crafting successful messages.
Give People What They Want
If you’re hungry and in the mood for a burger, would you go to the fast food resturaunt with or without the beef? With ofcourse. Or, if you’re thinking about trying drugs as a teen, do you want a scrambled brain or a regular brain? A regular brain ofcourse. These two messages appeal to your audiences self interest and they remember it because knowing where the beef is can be extremely important when you’re hungry.
And this leads me to my final rule. Give people what they want. I know this sounds like common sense, but people and companies fail to do this regularly. They talk about their product features and their longevity, but at the end of the day, no one cares. As Seth Godin would say, the only radio station people listen to is WII-FM (What’s In It For Me).
What Do You Think?
Do you think there are any other rules of messages that people remember and share? Let’s have a conversation about it in the comments.
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Great points! We always hear that you should have a concise explanation of your business, but to me your visualization point is the most important (being a visual person).
@Jane visualization is the key. When I started blogging, it took me a while to learn how to tell non-bloggers what I did. I would say blog, and they would say diary. Then, I realized, all I had to say was, “you know some of those websites you read everyday? Like Cnet, People.com or w/e like that… Well, I own something similar”
Seth Godin also said to be remarkable. These are great tips on how to do that. We must stand out and make it easy to remember and pass along.
Sheila
Here’s the thing. Coming up with marketing like that takes time and is not very useful for someone who writes messages daily. Although I do agree that you need to make people picture what you’re talking about
@Sheila He did say that. You do have to be remarkable for people to remark about your company. Unfortunately, being remarkable doesn’t mean they talk about you… you need to be both remarkable and easy to communicate.
An expression I heard once: “You’re tremendous and terrific when you learn to be specific.” So one tip is to communicate with specifics – not generalities.
One way to do that is with examples and word pictures and stories.
Love that quote Steve. I might have to use that in a blog post somewhere…
Derek, I really like your new focus. I think you are doing a good thing here. I expect to be creating a lot of remarkable and memorable messages as a result of reading your blog.
I sure hope so. Now I need to decide how I’m going to tackle this that applies to bloggers and business people. I got a good response from this first article… now I have to make sure I continue to deliver.
Nice post. I think it’s great to give people what they want. As you mentioned, giving people what they want is certainly lost through out many corporate PR departments. Why do you think this is the case? Are they out of touch? Do they think they need to dictate what the consumer wants? Is GM out of touch with consumer needs?
Good stuff Derek!
While I can’t speak for GM specifically… In General, there are companies who have two different types of problems: 1) they don’t know how to communicate and 2) they don’t keep up with the competition. Here at Prevential we will talk about crafting memorable messages, whereas “keeping up with the competition” will be addressed sporadically.
Great points Derek. I particularly like the invasion of thoughts. It’s asking them to take action.
As for making it simple, just look at the “dumbing it down” the Bush campaign did in 2004, while Kerry’s intellectual rhetoric did little for the average Jane or Joe