Marketing

Is your brand resilient?

March 9, 2021

Doing the hard work of figuring out your brand and brand promise is just the beginning of the journey. When we work with a client to develop their brand, we warn them that their real work has begun once they make those initial decisions. Breathing meaning into a brand is a lifelong effort.

If you don’t truly ground your brand in a solid foundation and let it take root, then it becomes a marketing tagline or campaign that fades from the consumer’s consciousness in a nanosecond. On the flip side, when a brand is more than just a catchphrase and actually influences the company’s most significant decisions, it can be one of the greatest differentiators possible.

Because your brand (not your logo) should be evergreen, it’s vital that you make sure your brand is resilient enough to stand the test of time. Here are some traits of a brand that is built to last.

Based on reality: It should go without saying that when you develop your brand, it needs to be truthful. It needs to reflect who the organization is. It’s a promise, and it’s pretty tough to keep an inauthentic promise. Sure, you can fake it for a brief time, but it’s impossible to sustain. Remember that the consumer is jaded and is looking for evidence that it’s just for show. The only way to earn their trust is by living out your brand with 110% consistency. No one is that good of a faker.

Values-based: Every organization has foundational values, whether they’re identified and expressed or not. They often are the same values as the founder, but that doesn’t mean they’re woven through the entire company. A strong brand honors and elevates the values and bases many of the company’s policies and procedures on them.

Built with the customer in mind: A brand understands who they serve and how they add value to that customer. The more enthusiastic and committed the brand is, the more enthusiastic its customers are in return. This mutual loyalty is an incredible financial advantage to a business, and a strong brand helps cultivate that love fest.

Adaptable: If a brand is meant to be evergreen, it means the brand has to be adaptable. Survival requires the ability to shift as culture and realities evolve over time. When you think about any long-lasting brand, they look, behave and serve differently than they did at the moment of their origin. They’ve remained relevant by adapting to the changing times.

As true internally as externally: No strong brand can be two-faced. Remember that a brand promise is kept or violated by the employees of the brand. It’s pretty unrealistic to expect people to perpetuate a lie, which is how it will feel if the brand values aren’t honored internally. If you think your consumers are skeptical, your employees are even more so. Unless they’re fresh out of school, they’ve probably worked for a company that professed to be something to the outside world but showed up very differently to them. You have to earn their trust before they’ll help you earn your consumers’ trust.

A genuine brand that guides your organization, attracts right-fit customers to you, reassures your current clients that you’re the right choice, and allows you to gain market share is a powerful asset. Most of us are not running companies the size of Coca-Cola, but it is worth noting that their brand is valued at $84 billion.

There’s no reason your brand, if it’s built to be resilient, can’t deliver an incredible value to your organization as well. You just need to build and nurture it wisely.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Does being negative generate positive results?

March 2, 2021

In last week’s column, we looked at why so many of the political ads take an aggressive, negative stance rather than exalting the candidate’s platform, past performance or beliefs. The data shows that the negative ads are effective, so we endure them every year through the election cycle.

But what about using negative ad tactics for nonpolitical advertising? Does it still work? The data is far less conclusive. We expect political candidates to trash-talk their competitors, but it seems like we have a different standard for brands. People are drawn to brands that they can connect with and that share some of their same core values. In general, we hope our marketing builds a bond that makes our consumers proud to buy what we have to sell.

In the ideal world, they feel as though using our product or service says something about them.

For example, when Dawn started promoting that it was the product used to save/clean up animals after an oil spill, it was a game changer for them.

Their campaign Dawn Saves Wildlife achieved the highest ROI of any commercial in the home care industry and scored them an off-the-charts consumer equity index score of 168.

We love brands we can love and connect with, and we love it when our dollars support something we believe in. Despite that, taking a negative approach can be effective if it’s done well. The nuance here is that it can’t be vicious or mean-spirited, like political ads.

Here are some ways you can generate positive reactions to a negative campaign.

Taking on your competitor: If you’re going to go head to head with a competitor and either name them explicitly or make it clear who you’re talking about, you need to tread carefully. Using humor or a lighter tone will soften the audience’s reaction to your attack. We’ve seen this in the mobile phone space.  With quirky characters and catchphrases, they poke at their competitors, but with a light touch.

Take on an issue: Another way to put a positive spin on a negative is to point out a risk or social issue. We see medical commercials and nonprofits paint a grisly picture (like those sad, abused dogs in the SPCA spots) and then give us an opportunity to help right the wrong or avoid the symptom or disease. The power of these negative spots is that we can do something to avoid or fix what is broken.

Show what might happen: There are plenty of spots that use this strategy of showing us the consequences if we fail to take action or if we make the wrong choice. Political ads take this to an extreme, but many brands go down this path as well. The Rid-X spot that shows how a little girl’s garden party birthday was ruined because her dad didn’t use Rid-X is a perfect example of this strategy.

As you consider using one of these negative strategies, be mindful of your brand. It has to be authentic and in alignment with your organization’s values. Not every brand can step into this negative space and pull it off. Beyond your brand, you have to think about your audience as well. Some are going to embrace that negative tone, and others are going to find it off-putting.

Really smart marketing communicates and resonates. It not only tells the audience who we are, but it tells them how we are a good fit for them.

Keeping that in mind as you explore using one of these negative-toned strategies will help you decide which one, if any, is a good choice for creating a connection that will hopefully lead to ongoing sales and brand loyalty.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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If you can’t say something nice…

February 23, 2021

It’s inevitable.

During every election cycle, I shake my head in dismay at the tactics taken by candidates at every level of government in their campaign ads. I hate the shouting, the hyperbole aimed at their opponents, and the ridiculous imagery that goes along with the words. They are everything we as marketers have been taught to avoid because of how offensive it is.

The problem is, they’re effective.

Many studies have been done that demonstrate that negative ads specifically tied to political campaigns are more memorable and have a more substantial impact on viewers.

Interestingly, a negative ad about the candidate you strongly support reinforces your buying decision to vote for that candidate. Our reaction is to be defensive on behalf of our candidate and protect them with our vote. An accidental downside for negative ads is that you can inadvertently activate your opponent’s base to go to the polls and vote.

When the studies say that negative ads are effective, they aren’t necessarily saying they help the candidate directly get more votes. It has been proven that they are more memorable, increase voter turnout, and are stickier.

Several of the studies found that a negative frame is much more persistent or stickier than a positive one. If an ad comes at an issue negatively, but voters are later reminded of the policy’s positive aspects, they’ll still think it’s a bust. And if an ad presents a favorable view about a policy or issue, but later ads focus on its downsides, the voters’ positive perceptions will be swept away, and a negative one will take its place.

Once we think of a glass as half empty, it’s difficult to remember it is also half full. Our brains are hard-wired to seek out and remember negative information.

One of the most interesting aspects of the studies was when they looked at candidate or party ads versus ads placed like political action committees or PACs. Ads directly from the candidates were twice as effective as PAC ads. Whether it’s the “I approved this ad” endorsement or that the PAC ads tend to be even more extreme in their negativity, they are far less effective.

What does this mean for us as marketers? Should we start attacking our competitors in our ads and other marketing materials? Should we re-purpose their negative Yelp or Google reviews as a way of earning someone’s business?

Thankfully, the answer is a resounding no. While negativity plays well in the political arena, it does not perform the same in the marketplace.

Remember what our moms used to tell us when we said something negative about one of the kids at school. “Talking badly about someone says more about you than the person you’re talking about.”

It turns out that our moms were right again!

When we directly attack our competitors, we weaken our position. We come off looking vindictive and petty. The audience may find the feud entertaining, but they will also feel it is mean-spirited. Much like the accidental impact of negative political ads, the attack ads will also reinforce the loyalty and buying decisions of many of the customers who prefer the attacked brand.

But we should be able to help our prospects compare our product and services, shouldn’t we?

Absolutely. We just need to do it from a different angle.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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When sales slow down

February 16, 2021

As our country works to climb out of the recession, sales in many industries have been sluggish at best. Many sales teams are struggling to get calls returned, and even when they get the opportunity to talk with a prospect, they often aren’t getting too far.

The uncertainties of the economy, coupled with the pandemic, are stalling many sales. How can marketing help keep the sales team in the running when the prospects are running cold?

One of the nuances of marketing that often gets overlooked is the “be interesting, not interested” maxim.

Our marketing efforts often make it clear that we are interested in the prospect. We want them to buy something from us. When we show up wearing that intention on our sleeve, it’s easy for them to tune us out, unsubscribe to our emails, or ask us to stop calling.

When sales are flowing more quickly, it’s easy for us to miss the consequences of that mistake. But when everything is stalled, we need to earn the right to keep talking to our prospects. The way we do that is by being interesting. It looks incredibly simple to do, and yet many marketers fail miserably.

Why? Because they are not patient enough. The “be interesting, not be interested” works because the prospect doesn’t feel any pressure. When someone isn’t ready to buy, the only way they’ll tolerate our continuing communication is if we’re interesting to them. The minute they feel like we’re trying to close the sale, they’ll walk away.

To be interesting, you need to:

Be helpful: This is the most effective and easiest way to be interesting. But it’s one that many marketers are leery of because they don’t want to give away their secret sauce. Smart marketers know that when they give away everything they know, it creates a connection that leads to a shorter sales cycle and a bigger sales total.

Going out of your way to create helpful content, be available to answer questions, or point your prospect to a resource they can use are all ways you can earn the right to stay in touch.

Know something the prospect does not: When someone knows something we don’t, we find that intriguing. This is where industry data, research, case studies, how-to blog posts, and insider information prove incredibly useful. If you keep serving up interesting tidbits that give them an edge, they’ll keep listening.

Make an introduction: Odds are many people within your organization have powerful connections and collaborators. Maybe they served on a board with an influential individual, or it’s a client you’ve had for years. But many of your prospects would greatly appreciate being connected with someone in the industry who could help their career or be valuable to their company.

When someone trusts us with one of their contacts, we know they’ve, in essence, called in a favor on our behalf. That creates a sense of gratitude and the need to reciprocate in some way in the recipient of the introduction. That’s a powerful connection that will serve you well as you work to maintain a relationship with the prospect.

The most significant danger to this strategy is our own impatience. With a reluctant prospect, we need to wait until they clearly indicate to us that they’re finally ready to hear about our product or service.

In a time when we can’t offer special pricing or some other incentive to speed up the sale, we just need to keep things interesting!

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Nearly 70% of marketers expect to boost spend in 2021

February 4, 2021

There’s some good news and optimism from global marketing leaders looking for growth recovery in 2021. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed by the CMO Council say they will boost marketing spend in the coming year and most don’t expect to downsize or re-structure their organizations.

While many industry sectors have struggled in the past year, it appears most marketers have already done all the cutting, pruning and restructuring of budgets and teams in 2020, notes the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

The organization has 16,000 members in 10,000 companies across more than 110 countries worldwide. Members collectively control nearly $1 trillion of annual marketing spend. Key indicators of a positive outlook come from a year-end “Getting It Done in 2021” audit of around 200 CMO Council members across all regions worldwide. Key findings reveal:

• A surprising 65 percent will increase marketing spend in 2021; just 10 percent will reduce their budgets, while 24 percent expect no change
• A large percentage of marketers (70 percent) report significant or growing investments in marketing technology to improve effectiveness
• Most important areas of marketing automation and transformation will be sourcing and using customer data insights, executing campaigns more effectively, as well as improving operations and performance
• Just a quarter of marketing leaders say they will downsize or re-structure their marketing organizations in 2021, in contrast to 64 percent who will not
• Working more effectively with lines of business is the number one priority for marketing leaders, who are also keen to lower cost, increase efficiency and do a better job of both globalizing and localizing campaigns
• Over half of marketers surveyed want to optimize their customer journey, and more than a  third want to boost acquisition and conversion rates through better data-driven interaction and digital innovation
• Interestingly, across company sizes, regions and industries, priorities remained consistent: marketers are looking to increase spend and automate; likewise they are looking to save costs through efficiencies rather than through staff cuts

“The most relevant and compelling areas of conversation among our members right now are all about ROI, efficiency and revenue optimization,” notes Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “This means being more focused on digital marketing transformation, creating value from customer data, and upgrading customer engagement and experience.”

The online survey was fielded in December and early January and a summary report and infographics can be downloaded at https://cmocouncil.org/thought-leadership/reports/getting-it-done-in-2021.

 

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2021 is here. Now what?

January 6, 2021

It’s been a bit daunting to approach planning for this year, given the upheaval and chaos we are still experiencing. I have yet to meet a business person who did not declare 2020 to be the most perplexing and challenging year of their career.

Despite all of the unknowns, we still have to have a plan for 2021. Here are some aspects of your marketing that, no matter what is happening with COVID, racial challenges, or politics, you need to focus on in 2021.

You can’t slide backward. Every business needs to consciously protect their market share and brand awareness. You can’t afford to slip from your consumer’s mind. You must maintain a baseline presence or your brand equity, top-of-mind awareness, and favored status with your current customers, or it will quickly erode.

It’s incredibly tempting just to lie low and wait for all of this to blow over. Keep in mind, there has never been an economic downturn where that decision worked out well for an organization. Once you start to slide, it’s incredibly expensive and potentially impossible to recover from.

Expect the need for adaptations. This is not the time to make long-term plans that are inflexible or don’t give you room to pivot. Change has always been an element in the marketing world, but given the societal issues we’re facing right now, it’s almost a constant. Whatever you are working on for 2021, build in plenty of wiggle room for you to shift as needed.

Be mindful when you sign contracts or make any long-term commitments that they have protectionary language that would allow you to react to something at a moment’s notice, be it a world event or something very local. 2021 is probably the year to think in quarters, not the entire year.

Yes, build the plan for the whole year but be ready to retool the plan every 90 days.

Don’t assume this is how it will always be. If there is one common theme running through our country right now, it’s that people are starving to get back to face-to-face interactions in every aspect of their lives. We will go back to in-person meetings, conferences, trade shows, and live demos. Yes, digital is all-consuming right now, and it absolutely should play a critical role in your 2021 plan, but so should human contact.

How, when, and where this will happen is still pretty murky. Many organizations are already working on their 2021 live conferences and trade shows and fully expect them to be well attended. You want to carve out a budget for live interactions (one on one or one to many) in anticipation that they’ll happen, so you don’t get left out.

Check your tone. There’s a lot of talk about being marketing tone-deaf these days. It seems as though the sensitivity meter is set on high for just about every person on the planet. You need to understand the issues and sensitivities of your audience and double-check your creative, messaging, and delivery to make sure that you’re in alignment with the current sentiments.

The level of consumer intolerance is at an all-time high when a company does not demonstrate a desire to be inclusive or acknowledge whatever issue is forefront in the consumer’s mind, so don’t put yourself in that sort of firestorm unnecessarily.

2020 was a year like no other, but we can’t let its magnitude paralyze us into being unprepared in 2021. We know enough to set ourselves up for success, and the time to execute that plan is now.

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Taking full advantage of email marketing

December 30, 2020

Since we dealt with email law previously, I thought it would be a good idea to look at some email marketing best practices that will help us avoid getting sideways with the regulations.

But before we get into how to do it well, let’s talk about the value of doing it at all. According to Hubspot’s report “The State of Email Marketing in 2020,” for every $1 spent on email marketing, the return on investment is $38.

Marketers who used segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue, and 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.

It’s clearly effective when done well. So, how do you do it well?

Remember how it is viewed: 46% of all emails are opened on a mobile device. If your emails are not formatted to be visually pleasing on a cellphone, that should be fix No. 1.

Make sure you’re accessible: Over 1.3 billion people live with some level of visual disability.  There are some simple things you can do to make sure they can consume your content without missing any aspect of your communications. Learn how to create your emails so they’re screen-reader-friendly and watch your image contrast ratios.

Welcome emails perform better than any other email: Carefully crafting your welcome email (the first email sent to a new subscriber) is worth the effort. The average open rate is over 80%, and click-through rates exceed 22%.

Timing matters: When you send your email has a significant impact on whether your audience actually opens it. For the last several years, 9-11 a.m. and 3-5 p.m. have the highest open rates and click-through rates. The exception to that rule? Sundays. The peak time for opens on that one day of the week is 9 p.m.

If you don’t want them to reply, don’t email them in the first place: When you send out marketing emails, isn’t the whole point to engage your audience? It always baffles me why so many companies use a noreply@ address. The more interactive your emails are, the better. And it’s tough to interact with a noreply@ address!

Your emails should paint a picture with pictures! Emails with visuals and multimedia like video can have a 4x impact on click-through rates. Video performs twice as well as just including still images, and still images deliver double the results of a text-only email. Mixing your media usage will help keep things fresh and your audience engaged. But don’t overdo it. Too many images or videos will send you right into the spam folder!

Avoid the spam folder: Buying a list, emails that are too visual-heavy, sending too many emails a week, and not cleaning/purging your email list on a regular basis can all get you rerouted to your audience’s spam folder pretty quickly. That’s a lost opportunity that can easily be recaptured with some simple shifts.

Email marketing is one of the most reliable tactics available to businesses small and large.

When done well, it can create community, ignite interest in your products or services, and position you as an authority worth following.

It’s also one of the more cost-effective ways to build your brand, drive sales, and encourage repeat purchases when you do it well.

These best practices can get you started in the right direction if you’ve avoided email marketing in the past or help boost your performance if you’ve been at it for a while but aren’t seeing the results you want.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Dealing with an online troll

December 23, 2020

Ratings and reviews play a critical role in how our prospects measure our worthiness, long before we know they’re out there. No one will make every client happy 100% of the time, and sometimes we’ll genuinely earn a mediocre review. But what do you do when a troll decides to target you?

We’re dealing with this right now for a client. Our client produces a monthly newsletter that goes out to their clients, prospects, and anyone who signs up on their website.

They’ve followed all of the laws and best practices around email marketing. They don’t buy lists, and they don’t add people without their permission.

This week, an irate man blasted them with a Facebook review, calling them spammers. He admitted that he chose not to click on the unsubscribe link because he’d rather leave nasty reviews and demanded to know how he’d gotten on their list.

Before leaving the review, he called their office and screamed at their office administrator, demanding to be removed from the list. She freaked out, and admittedly this is where a mistake was made. Typically, when someone unsubscribes, they stay in the CRM system, but their record is blocked, meaning they cannot be sent another email.

But she was so unnerved by his call that she deleted him entirely from the system, so there was no chance he’d ever get another email from the company. But it also meant we couldn’t review the record to answer all of his questions.

He got even more belligerent (commenting on his own review), promising he wouldn’t go away.

We consulted with an attorney who specializes in this area. She told us that here in the U.S., he has a right to:

• Know what data of his you have.
• Ask you to delete his data.
• Tell you not to contact him again.

Interestingly, the rights don’t include a business having to tell the person where their information came from. We would have gladly told him that information if we could have retrieved it. But we were not in any way violating the law by not being able to share that information.

While we were gathering up all of this information, the troll continued to email the business owner, promising that this was not over, and he’d leave a bad review everywhere he could. He also admitted that he does this to every business that sends him an email that he believes he did not request.

We reached out to our client’s customers, explained the problem, and asked them to leave an honest review to push his review down on the site.

The business owner, who had already replied to the review on Facebook with an apology and explanation, sent the troll an email restating the apology and giving him all the information he could, and offered to let the troll speak to the business’s attorney. Since then, the troll has left three more scathing reviews on different sites, and the loyal clients of this business have responded with reviews to water down the impact.

What are the lessons here?

• Monitor all review sites daily.
• Be sure you are following the most up-to-date rules and laws.
• Include an unsubscribe option on every marketing email.
• Build your community so they will rally behind you if needed.
• Deal with trolls quickly and directly.
• And maybe the most important one: Trust people to see the troll for who they are and to temper their reaction to the review accordingly.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective tactics out there. Do it well, and don’t let a troll dissuade you from continuing to use it.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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Where did your confidence go?

December 16, 2020

If there has ever been a year when our confidence has taken a knock to the chin, it’s 2020. If you are like most marketers, January and February gave every indication that 2020 was going to be a breakout year for you.

Many businesses reported the most robust January they’d had in a decade and were looking to exceed goals. And then COVID hit. Many of us went two to three months feeling that it was inappropriate to sell at all, and when we did sell, it was a bit apologetically.

As if that weren’t enough, the combination of COVID, racial tensions, economic challenges, back-to-school maybes, and just feeling like we are being restricted and contained at every turn has caused an underlying malaise in just about every human I know.

Given everything we’re all carrying on our shoulders right now, how in the world do we muster up the confidence to sell?

Marketing and sales are all about confidence. When you believe in what you’re selling, know it is the right answer for the prospect, and can see the benefits the prospect could enjoy, it’s much easier to approach a new opportunity and offer your assistance.

That’s where I think we can regain our confidence: by recognizing that we have something valuable to offer and by seeing it as us offering assistance. Your marketing should be helpful and useful, which builds trust. Once the trust is seeded, sales is about continuing the trust-building while offering tailored solutions that are going to exceed expectations.

Barbara Corcoran, from ABC’s “Shark Tank,” recently shared a letter that she wrote to the show’s producer, Mark Burnett. It’s clear from the letter that she had received a “thanks, but no thanks” response to her audition and I’m sure Mark expected her just to exit gracefully.

Instead, she sent him this letter, outlining very respectfully why this was not the right decision. Her arguments were not about her but how he was taking a more significant risk by not allowing her to come to LA for the final tryout, even though her rival for the position would be there as well.

She called Burnett’s rejection a lucky charm and then gave him point-by-point suggestions of how his final decision would be more reliable if he reconsidered her for a role on the show.

The entire letter exudes confidence. There’s nothing arrogant about it, but as she builds her case, you begin to understand what a formidable force she really is. She ends the letter acknowledging that it is his decision, but she’s already booked her flight and hopes he invites her to get on that plane.

As I studied the letter, I identified some of the sources of her confidence that we can all learn from as we rebuild our own:

She reflects on her past successes and sees them as a progression of her skills, accomplishments, and lessons learned.

She thinks about the opportunity from the buyer’s (Mark Burnett) perspective and demonstrates that he’s at risk of making a bad decision if he does not consider her in the mix.

She suggests ways he could improve his decision-making process, whether she is chosen or not.

She compliments him and recognizes his depth of expertise in his field.

She ends with the presumptive act of confidence (booking the flight).

Breaking that down, it’s about having faith in yourself and what you sell. It’s about truly understanding what your potential buyer is trying to accomplish and his or her situation and being helpful in their efforts, and it’s about a confident close, knowing you can make a difference.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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The hero’s journey continues

December 9, 2020

If you’ve been following along, we are halfway through the stages of the hero’s journey, the construct we can use to think about weaving elements of storytelling into our marketing. I left off at the stage where the hero (our prospect) meets the sage sidekick (our product, service, or brand).

In my example, our hero is a 55-year-old woman who is dealing with her aging father. She suspects her dad is showing signs of early dementia, but it may also just be forgetfulness. She had just met the sage sidekick through the nursing home’s website. It was not created to sell but to help.

It included tips for keeping a loved one at home, assessing whether or not staying in the home was a safe solution, and asking questions to evaluate nursing homes. This facility also offered caregiver support groups, regardless of whether their loved one was still at home or even at a different facility.

The site was created to genuinely help our hero make the right decision, which is why she ultimately kept going back as she weighed her options. It became a reliable and trusted resource. It is worth noting that the nursing home whose website our hero keeps visiting has no idea she is out there or who she is. But they’ve already begun a relationship with her.

The next stage is crossing into the unfamiliar: Our hero has decided to explore her options, searching for the right choice for her dad. This stage is where the hero braces to face and fight the unknown. They’re anxious at this point because they know they’re going to encounter resistance, opposition, and doubts. In our example, our hero is worried about what her siblings will think and wonders if they can even afford a nursing home or in-home help.

When she gets stuck or afraid, she turns to the sidekick for guidance and reassurance. The confidence she gains allows her to step deeper into the unknown, ready to face whatever lies ahead.

The battle: This is rarely a physical battle in our marketing world. But it might be a battle of options. Or opposition. Or the desire to go back to the status quo because it would be easier, even if our hero knows it’s not the right decision. This is the moment when the decision is made.

In our example, our hero must now choose the right nursing home because dad needs more care than she can provide. (In this stage of the journey, she will meet the actual brand and staff from the website she’s relied on, so the hero becomes even more real.) She might have to fight her siblings to make this decision. Or she may be plagued with guilt because of the conversation she had with her mom about caring for dad. But ultimately, she might do what she knows is right, even if it’s incredibly difficult.

The reward: This is the stage where the hero celebrates that they fought whatever was in between them and the right decision; they battled it out and won. Now they’ve solved the original challenge, and because of the journey, they are wiser and hopefully more content.

To wrap up our example, our hero’s dad is thriving in his new home, and he is healthier because he’s getting specialized attention from the nursing staff and eating better. The daughter can stop spending all of her time being his caregiver, and instead, just enjoy her time with him as his daughter.

I’ve simplified the steps down to what I believe are essential from a marketing perspective. But hopefully, this gives you an idea of how you could map out the core story and then build marketing messages from that story.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

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