Our businesses are like novels
We tend to view our businesses as a collection of silos – direct marketing, sales, accounting, finance, creative, customer services ect. However, our customers don’t. To our customers, our brand is a continuum – a story.
Think of the novels we’ve read:
- If a story has a poor beginning, we abandon it
- If the middle lacks punch we probably finish it, but abandon the author
- If the ending is disappointing, not only do we abandon the author, but we’re particularly vocal about it.
Isn’t this true with our consumer relationships as well?
- Send us a spammy introductory email? Relationship is over
- Sell us inferior products? Relationship is over
- Abandon us after the sale? Relationship is over and we broadcast our experience to the world
As marketers we need to step outside of our world and start thinking of our businesses as our customers do – as one unified story. If we begin to view the world this way, I bet most of us invert our priorities. We maintain dead focus on the middle (our products), hold ourselves to impossible standards at the ending and trust that an solid effort is enough for the beginning.
I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one. - Leo Burnett