Here’s a question for you? What do you need to be successful? What will it take for you to climb out of that deep, dark, dungeon of despair and mediocrity? What are you willing to do to be the best you can be?
Look around. Things are nuts, the economy stinks, politicians are goofy, people are addicted to cell phones, businesses are obsessed with Twitter and Google and Facebook; everything is made in China, and its all CRAP! You’re lucky if anything you buy works the way its suppose to and god help you if you complain. You’ll spend hours on the phone with some clown who doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and doesn’t get paid to really help you. They are the purveyors of frustration and creators of cynicism. Athletes pretentiously thank God for their base hits and million dollar contracts, and we watch in astonishment. Trust me, God doesn’t give a damn about who wins the next Nascar race, or that you get an even bigger flat screen plasma for your birthday. He’s got bigger fish to fry like global warming, child starvation, and deadly pandemics. You’re on your own fella. So get use to it.
So what’s a poor entrepreneur to do? Follow the big boys as if they were The Enlightened Ones. Right, how’s that worked out so far? Do you really want to go down the same road as GM or Lehman Brothers? Nobody is going to bail your ass out of trouble; you can count on that.
People have stopped thinking. We educate our kids to be engineers and technicians, but they don’t understand the world, they don’t understand people. Unable to get into med school or law they become Web entrepreneurs because they think it’s an easy way to make a buck. You never have to see or hear from customers, they’re not people they’re just digital ghosts with credit cards. Well maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that lack of communication skill is what’s wrong? So how do you communicate, how do you serve your public, how do you become a success?
Do you really want to know, or do you want to keep doing the same thing with the same results you’ve been doing? Maybe it’s good enough for you, but good enough isn’t good enough anymore. Now you have to excel, now you have to be different to stand out. Now you have to be better, or at least as best as you can be. And all it takes is a fundamental understanding of how to communicate.
Are you ready to take the leap? Are you ready to communicate your message so people say, “I want that!” Don’t get me wrong. There’s no mystery, no secret, no great panacea for success. It’s just a question of learning how and what to communicate, and that my friend is the why of it all.
Words Have Meaning
That’s right, words have meaning. Even in an era where language has been bastardized by text message lingo and meaningless business palaver dumped on us by consultants who never ran anything but their mouths, even today, words have meaning if you know what to say and how to say it.
Sure, sure, people are busy, I get that, but you know what frustrates them more than anything, it’s when companies waste their time with bland, meaningless platitudes. People crave information. They demand to know more, be more, and achieve more. The potential is limitless. Are you filling that demand with meaningful, memorable content? Words are the foundation of persuasion. Words have meaning.
Language Defines The Conversation
If you want to be the market leader you have to control the conversation and you do that with the language you use. If you can control the words you can dominate the market. The words you use make a difference. Use the right words in the right way, and you’ll own the conversation, and put your competitors at a distinct disadvantage.
The Republican Party in the USA has controlled the political discourse for some time thanks to political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz is the architect of the Republican Party’s language policy. It’s Luntz who was responsible for turning “inheritance tax” into “death tax,” “global warming” into “climate change,” and “eavesdropping” into “electronic intercepts.” Control the words and you control the conversation no matter what side of the political fence you sit on.
People respond emotionally to the words used, the right language can spark an argument or an agreement; it can generate an order or a rejection. Words can move you. Move you to action. And that’s what marketing is all about.
Voice Provides Clarity
Words aren’t much good if nobody hears them. Writing has to speak with a voice, an attitude, a point-of-view, and it has to be heard – out loud. The sound of the human voice delivers more meaning, more nuance, more depth of emotion and excitement than any other communication tool at your disposal. The proper use of tone, cadence, rhythm and phrasing creates something special, something more than just clever prose; it creates an experience and defines a brand.
Sound is by far the most complicated of communication tools and at the same time the most ignored and misunderstood. The wrong voice, the wrong music, and the wrong sound effects will kill any chance you have of delivering an effective marketing message.
Personality Makes the Connection
Even the best words won’t work if they aren’t delivered properly. Creating a distinct identity demands a superior performance, one that delivers personality. Personality is the means by which you connect with your audience, after all, if you don’t connect, nothing you say will be heard. Combine the right sound with the right words and the right personality, and you’re on your way to getting where you want to be.
Putting It All Together
There’s a reason we recommend video as the best way to convey your marketing message to your Web audience. Video can deliver your words, it can control the conversation, it can establish your brand, and it can present your message in the most meaningful, memorable manner if you do it right. You may have a great message, but if it’s not delivered effectively, you are turning over your primary asset to your competitors.