Return on Intention

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there was a mighty river. This river was the sole water source for the kingdom, and had been flowing for generations. One day the water stopped flowing, and the king summoned the bravest knight in the kingdom to the castle, Sir Steve the Noble. The King dispatched Sir Steve to go up the dry river bed to find out what had happened. Sir Steve traveled for days and nights until finally finding that a dam had been built, stopping the water. Sir Steve destroyed the dam, and the kingdom lived happily ever after.

As stories go, that wasn’t very exciting. There is something missing. Lets try that story again and see if we can make it better.

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there was a mighty river. This river was the sole water source for the kingdom, and had been flowing for generations. One day the water stopped flowing, and the king summoned the bravest knight in the kingdom to the castle, Sir Steve the Noble. The King dispatched Sir Steve to go up the dry river bed to find out what had happened. Sir Steve traveled for days and nights until finally finding that a dam had been built by non other than the Duke of Darkness. The dam was guarded by hoards of the Dukes minions. Sir Steve, knowing that his chances for victory we’re slim, charged ahead into battle without hesitation. Sir Steve knew that without water, the kindly village people of the kingdom would suffer. With the faces of the village children pictured in his mind, Sir Steve battled through the minions until there was no one left standing except for himself, and the Duke. There, in the middle of the dam, an epic battle raged between the Noble knight and the evil Duke. Back an forth the swords flew, only to be stopped still with a clang as it landed on armor and shield. For hours the battle between the two men raged, until with the last of his strength, Sir Steve struck the fatal blow to the Duke of Darkness. With the villain gone, and the safety of the kingdom in hand, Sir Steve destroyed the dam and the kingdom lived happily ever after.

Ok, so I’m not much of epic story writer, but I think its clear the second attempt was much better than the first. Both stories have the same set up an the same conclusion, but the second allow the reader to become more emotionally invested in the outcome for two reasons. 1.) There was a villain; and 2.) Details about what the protagonist is thinking and feeling. The addition of the villain gives the audience something to focus its attention, and disdain on. A good protagonist is one that the audience can either identify with, or at least root for. The audience needs to get on the side of the stories lead, and in order to do that, you need to know why the protagonist is doing what he’s doing.

So much of marketing today is about story telling. The story could be  about the founding of an organization, or the triumph of a product. To get the idea across to the audience, its going to take more than the  just the facts. Look at the story your telling. Who is the protagonist, and what is the conflict? What is at stake, and who is the conflict with? Why should the user care, and how do you get them on the side of your protagonist? How much story is in your story?

Being noticed is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses. Startups and established businesses both suffer from the problem of being remembered. Increasing numbers of competitors, along with the general ignorance of the market leaves many local businesses struggling to get their perspective customers to know or remember they exist; however it’s not usually the competition that keeps companies from standing out. Most often, it’s the company itself.

There is a prevailing myth that being “professional” means to be “boring”. Businesses suffer from this idea that doing something risky is risky. It’s been said before that the only risky thing to do is to play it safe, and the safe thing to do is be risky. To be noticed, do something worth noticing. To be remembered, do something memorable. Doing the same thing as your competition but “better” is usually not memorable. The “better” that many businesses are defining themselves by are usually things that doesn’t effect the customer or are completely missed by the customer  because they are not  knowledgeable enough in the industry to know whats better and what isn’t. If the customer can’t see it, or doesn’t understand it, they won’t remeber it.

Do something different. Give your brand some character. You are different than your competition, so look, act and be different. Don’t try to bury the personality of your brand in “professionalism”. Jingles are silly and corny, all the things a professional isn’t supposed to be. They also work. A rubber duck doesn’t have much to do with real estate, but customers remember it. Just ask Rick Miner from Duckin.com.  Have some fun. Be different. Be memorable.

There is quite a conversation going on right now in the marketing departments across America. There seems to be a new (well … sort of new) bright shiny object that seems to be causing some trouble. It’s called social media.
With Comcast and Zappos on Twitter and Nike on Facebook, social media is the place to be. Every day we hear about another traditional media source losing revenue or shutting down and more reports saying that advertising isn’t working the way it once did. From the other side of isle we hear the social media crowd saying that the new read/write web is the future. Social media or die, or so it goes.
Compounding the problem, there are rumblings that the top referring sites for many successful websites aren’t Google, Yahoo and MSN anymore. Now it’s Google, Twitter and Facebook. Something’s afoot. So, should all businesses rush to social media as a means to succeed, or is it all hype?
Given all this noise, it’s easy to see why so many marketers and business people are trying to figure out what a “FaceTube” is. How about advertising? We get that. Do it online? Get me some banner ads!
Social media is supposed to enable groups of people with similar interests to get together and … hang out. It seems to work great and brands want in on it. But even if the company manages to figure out the technology, then what? Well, they engage the group. Does that mean sell more stuff? Does that mean more “Top of Mind” awareness? It’s not clear, but people like it.
So it seems that customers want companies to get in on social media. Most companies seem to think they should, but they also don’t know why. The main reason is that while the internet is much more measurable than other marketing communication channels, it’s still hard to figure out if your Twitter account or YouTube video is closing sales. Many people have done amazing things for their business, brand recognition and bottom line using social media. So it stands to reason that it works and companies should do it. People like to do business with people like them, so getting involved and engaged with customers has to be a good thing, right?
Hold on a second. This conversation sounds familiar!
It seems that social media is widely regarded as “the right thing” for companies to do. There is some signs that it works but it’s hard to tie to direct sales. This sounds a lot like brand awareness advertising. We do it (or did it depending on who you are) because it was “the right thing” to do to be successful. It seemed to work, at least all the big successful companies did it, and it seemed to work. It’s just kind of hard to directly tie it to sales.
Is social media the “new” branding? Does it make a difference in this ROI driven world? What do you think?