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2021 trends: Staying relevant in the age of e-commerce

April 13, 2021

In this second column of the 2021 trends series, I want to talk about the acceleration of e-commerce adoption. The pandemic forced many consumers to change their purchasing habits, and e-commerce was the lucky recipient. Techcrunch predicted e-commerce would be up more than 20%, and in the third quarter of 2020 e-commerce increased by over 30% over the second quarter.

There’s no doubt that the forced isolation, stay-at-home orders, and working from home have all accelerated e-commerce growth globally, and most marketers predict this shift is permanent.

On the flip side, we are all urging each other to buy local and support the businesses around us. The question is really: How do we take the best from each buying experience and weave it throughout the other?

As consumers, we all love the 24/7 convenience of online shopping. It’s hard not to delight in being able to do your holiday shopping in your jammies while enjoying a roaring fire at 10 p.m.
But that delight often turns to frustration when you can’t reach anyone to resolve a problem or ask a question.

On the flip side, we love being welcomed into a store or business and enjoy the personal service. But it’s frustrating when we made an effort to get there and what we want is out of stock, or they can’t help us.
On the local front, many businesses have had to reinvent how they deliver their products and services in 2020. Innovations around deliveries, curbside pickups, ramped-up websites with more functionality, and even Zoom delivery of services that had traditionally always been face-to-face. But finding ways to integrate the warmth of the in-person experience with a robust website and active social media channels will be critical for survival in 2021. “We don’t have time or the money” just won’t cut it anymore. Having a digital presence is mission-critical.

It’s time to go beyond the convenience factor for businesses that are already crushing it on the e-commerce side. Creating brand loyalty and a community of happy customers will allow you to develop a connection with your customer base that will encourage repeat purchases and word-of-mouth buzz.
The other area that needs plenty of improvement is the gap between the organization’s brand and the online experience. Convenience loses its allure when you can’t get hold of someone to answer a question or deal with an issue.

Every business needs to be paying close attention to how and where their brand shows up online. Findability goes beyond simple SEO. Getting on referral sites, digital shopping lists, and ramping up your efforts to get reviews are all going to be critical.

But it’s not all about the online aspect of the relationship. Building your brand promise and ensuring it’s delivered at every touchpoint is even more critical when you have never met your customer in person. Your brand has to be much bigger than the channel. Your brand needs to be channel-agnostic.

Another aspect of e-commerce that needs some attention is the whole concept of packaging and presentation. There’s a lot to think about in this arena. We immediately go to protecting the contents from breaking. Given the power of social media, live streaming, and influencers, the unpacking process itself should not be ignored. How do you make the opening of your package an experience unto itself?
How do you bring your brand to life if you don’t get to interact with your consumer in person? How does your brand translate to Zoom, an e-commerce site or an email interaction?

That’s the most important question we need to answer as we acknowledge that the digital revolution is here to stay. It’s filled with opportunities if we’re smart enough to seize them!

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

2021 trends: Responding to the recession

April 6, 2021

This year, the trends are far less about new channels and much more about the world around us. For the next several weeks, we’re going to examine some of the most influential trends that will shape how we approach marketing in the coming year. There certainly can be no more crucial economic trend than the recession itself.

We’ve seen marketing and media budgets slashed and longer-term strategies like brand building pushed aside so companies could move as much of their marketing spend to performance channels as possible. It’s a little like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When your company is in panic mode, you focus on short-term survival, and everything else can wait for another day. But how long can we wait?

The uncertainty with which we entered 2021 is already taking its toll on some segments and media channels. But, of course, the pain will not be felt equally. Some markets and categories have sailed through the last year and are posting big gains. Other categories are starving for sales and have suffered incredible losses. How and where we will spend our marketing dollars is equally uneven. Many advertisers have already increased their spending on Facebook and Google. Amazon and TikTok are also winning share of budgets, as marketers prioritize audiences closer to the point of transaction.

Another big winner due to the pandemic and recession combination is online video. With the promise of 5G, consumption will continue to increase. What’s interesting about the video trends is that they are tightly tied to influencer marketing. Not only will brands be creating their own video content, but they will also be spending more money with influencers who have a strong video following.

There are some upsides as we slowly come out of the recession. Media costs have been lowered in most markets, so advertising dollars will stretch a little further. This price reduction coincides with a significant increase in media consumption. You will pay less for even more eyeballs.

We’ve known all along that the brands who remained visible, marketing to both their current customers and potential customers during the crisis, would fare better than those who went dark. This will continue through 2021. Now is not the time for your brand to be timid, especially if your competitors are dialing it back. There is market share to be captured if you’re willing to go after it.

We most likely will not experience a full economic recovery until after the mass distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. Experts suggest an April – early June timeline before everyone in the US who wants a vaccine can obtain one. The uncertainty will dissipate reasonably quickly after that, which means you have a few months left to make the most of the paralysis that some businesses are exhibiting.

But 2021 may provide some brands in a position of strength with an unprecedented opportunity for share of market growth. Many companies are going to be solely focused on retaining their existing customers. But, when people experience a significant life event, their ingrained habits are broken, and they have to establish new habits. With some smart marketing, you could be one of those new habits!

There’s no doubt that a global event like the pandemic and the sweeping recession that came along with it is going to be one of the biggest trends of 2021 and as you’ll see in the subsequent columns, the other trends, in some ways, are the ripple effect of this megatrend.

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

Gaps & holes in marketing teams impact business performance

March 28, 2021

86 Percent of Chief Marketers Report Missed Revenue and Customer Acquisition

Goals Due to Unfilled Functional Leadership Positions and Lack of Expertise

Over half of marketing leaders surveyed worldwide concede they are struggling to effectively execute multi-channel campaigns on both a global and local level, reveals the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.

The new CMO Council study, entitled Scaling the Value of the CMO, uncovers gaps, holes and deficiencies across key functional areas in the office of the CMO. As a result, an overwhelming 86 percent of senior marketers believe lack of leadership depth and capabilities has resulted in missed revenue, growth and customer acquisition opportunities.

Underscoring the problem, a surprising one third of senior marketers surveyed by the CMO Council in early 2021 admit lack of resources, capabilities and effective leadership in key functional areas “consistently” impair performance of their team; over half concede this is an “intermittent” problem.

A large number of CMOs (43 percent) admit that it is “very difficult, time consuming and always challenging” to find experienced, proficient and knowledgeable functional leaders and direct reports; a further 40 percent acknowledge that it is “moderately difficult.”

“Most senior marketers say they are challenged by the time it takes to properly recruit and onboard senior functional leaders on their team,” notes Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, which is based in Silicon Valley.

According to Neale-May, more than half of survey respondents say the process takes three to six months and another 15 percent indicate this can take more than six months. “There’s no doubt the office of the CMO could be quickly and effectively fortified with fractional or interim marketing leaders hired on-demand,” he adds.

To this end, the CMO Council is partnering with Chief Outsiders to offer its members on-demand outsourcing of senior marketing talent on a contract or interim basis. The CMO Council has 16,000 members in 10,000 companies across more than 110 countries worldwide. Members collectively control nearly $1 trillion of annual marketing spend. Chief Outsiders manages a large, fractional resource group of CMOs with expertise across industries, functional areas and geographies. (www.chiefoutsiders.com)

Findings from the latest CMO Council survey, reveal an overwhelming 93 percent of chief marketers say they have had a “very positive, quite good or favorable” experience using interim marketing leaders. Not one reported a “poor” relationship and only five percent stated it was inconsistent.

While respondents say sourcing permanent employee talent is complex and time-consuming, only about a third of chief marketers have retained experienced contractors or part time staff at the director and above level. Despite leadership gaps and holes, a surprising 41 percent of chief marketers report they have not used contractors, while 25 percent say they are assessing this option or plan to do so in 2021.

Scaling the Value of the CMO research highlighted the five main benefits of using fractional or interim marketing leaders. This included:

Fast ramp up and time-to-performance
Proven performers and doers
Range of competencies and capabilities
Domain expertise or knowledge
Added value thinking and leadership depth

“Clearly, CMOs are challenged to fill critical leadership roles, particularly when it comes to using digital marketing technology and actionable data to improve go-to-market strategy, customer targeting, conversion, and ongoing engagement,” notes Art Saxby, CEO, co-founder and principal of Chief Outsiders. “It is gratifying to see that over 90 percent of those surveyed said they had realized a very positive or favorable experience using interim marketing leaders in their enterprise.”

Top five areas where chief marketing officers see gaps, holes and deficiencies in their marketing leadership structures:

Customer journey, acquisition and conversion
Segmentation and personalized messaging at scale
Actioning on customer data insight
Demand generation and pipeline
Campaign execution and measurement

The report is based off of a survey conducted in Q1 2021 of 150 senior marketing executives. A complimentary report is available for download at: https://cmocouncil.org/thought-leadership/reports/scaling-the-value-of-the-cmo

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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