9. Build your message on human truths.
How to distinguish your brand in a world of full of fluff.
So how do you get people to pay attention when they are trying as hard as they can to ignore you? When they are the targets of a non-stop barrage of 30,000 messages every single day?
How can you convince them you’re worthy of their attention?
You can show them something real. Remember, one of the main reasons marketing is largely ignored is because the default assumption is that you’re lying.
If marketing is deception, manipulation, deceit, you have an opportunity to create not-marketing, something else worthy of your buyers’ attention, by being honest.
Truth is magic.
A friend and colleague of mine once asked me, “But don’t you feel badly about using persuasion to influence people? To manipulate them?” To which the answer is, effective persuasion isn’t manipulation.
Persuasion is alignment.
When we think about the things we choose to do, we know this is true. The brands we come back to again and again, the places we choose to spend our time, the things that feel like “me”. They resonate because they’re aligned with who we are and how we show up in the world.
The same dynamic is what works with what you have to offer and why someone might care about it. It’s not manipulation, and it’s not a trick. Your prospects give you their attention because there’s something about what you’ve got there that aligns with something about them.
Alignment between what you’re doing and what your prospects care about.
That’s not to say it’s easy to do.
The truth is more than just being honest about what your thing does or how it works. It’s about connecting with something deep, something essential that you share with your prospects.
