Everything you’ve done so far has prepared you for this.
In other words, each step of the Empowerment Marketing Framework is designed to guide you so you know how to tell the right story to your chosen audience.
And as long as you’ve been doing the work, you’re more prepared for this than you may know.
You started with a mission to help people solve a problem in a way that you are uniquely qualified for. Your purpose for solving this problem is based on core values that are demonstrated with your content and copy.
This puts you in a position to be a leader in a movement away from the status quo to a new normal. Thanks to your values-based messaging, you have a unifying connection with your audience where they trust you to give them new ideas and perspectives.
You understand that your role as a leader is as a mentor, not a hero. The prospect is the hero of the story you’re telling, and you’ll get everything you want by helping them get what they want.
The stage is now set to take your prospects on a journey from their ordinary life into a world of transformation until they reside in a new reality where the problem is solved.
All that needs to be done now is to fine-tune exactly how that narrative journey will be delivered, both in a big-picture sense and with each article, video, podcast episode, email message, and landing page on the way to your offer.
The way you tell your story has three primary elements to develop before you start creating:
Presentation
Positioning
Premise
Let’s dive into each.
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Presentation: Developing Your Point of View
When you think of how to best “present” your content and copy to your audience, your voice is the first thing you’ll likely consider. Whether you think in terms of brand voice or your personal style, the one thing everyone tells you is that your voice must be authentic.
But what does that really mean? Do you even have an authentic self, or is it more accurate to say you play different roles based on who you’re speaking to?
How would you differ in each of these situations:
On the phone with your kid
At the bar with your friends
In a job or client interview
This is an important point because it’s your audience who will determine if you’re authentic in their eyes based on their expectations. And those expectations go back to a shared identity based on expressed values.
For most audiences, you don’t want them to notice your voice. You want them to connect with what you’re saying because you said it the right way for them. Too often, your desire to show off your unique voice gets in the way of clarity for them.
What you need instead is a unique point of view (POV). And that perspective should be consistent over time in order to be deemed authentic and trustworthy by your audience. POV is at the heart of all effective thought leadership content, and you’ve been doing the work to discover yours through the process presented by the Empowerment Marketing Framework.
Google “brand voice,” and you’ll get the same 3-step advice:
Start with your company mission
Create a detailed profile of your ideal prospect
Make a list of do’s and don’ts
You’ve already done the first two steps, which are the most important. If you want to further clarify the uniform tone of voice your content will have, start with what your voice is not:
Our brand voice is not pretentious.
Our brand voice is not too serious.
Our brand voice is not grandiose.
Our brand voice is not unfriendly.
Then you can flip things around to say what your tone of voice is:
Our brand voice is down-to-earth and authentic. It’s funny and casual. It’s humble. And it’s helpful.
Your tone is an aspect, but not the totality, when defining your presentation. That’s because the language you use defines your POV in a new and different way for your audience.
Your mission reveals your purpose and values to create an initial connection. Then, you keep your audience archetype in mind when communicating the attitudes you want your audience to adopt. In the process, you (the mentor) choose the best terminology, analogies, metaphors, and stories to lead your prospect along the buyer’s journey.
To give you an example of how this flows from the work you’ve done, here’s a breakdown of a persuasive message featured in Made to Stick by Dan Heath and Chip Heath.
Mission:
Back in 1994, Art Silverman wanted to educate the public about the dangers of saturated fat (that was before the current understanding that trans fats are the true villains).
Values:
Health, Well-Being, Self Control, Personal Responsibility
Audience:
The general population of the United States who care about health and nutrition.
Attitude:
Silverman needed a commonly consumed food item loaded with saturated fat to make people aware that they were routinely ingesting more of it than recommended. He chose popcorn, specifically the kind served at various movie chains, and tested the saturated fat content.
Presentation:
Silverman’s analysis revealed that a medium bag of movie popcorn has 37 grams of saturated fat, while the USDA recommends you have no more than 20 grams in an entire day. But instead of simply citing that surprising statistic, Silverman presented the message in a way designed to illustrate how much saturated fat that actually is to his audience of average consumers, who likely can’t conceptualize what “37 grams” means:
A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings — combined!
Not every consumer cared, but those who shared core values related to health, fitness, and nutrition did. Silverman’s message might not have worked with nutritionists or perhaps more analytical people like engineers or accountants, but for the average person, it was shockingly effective.
The idea stuck. Moviegoers, repulsed by these findings, avoided popcorn in droves. Sales plunged.
What you say is crucial. But how you say it can make all the difference, and it all stems from the work you’ve done defining your mission, identifying your audience, and outlining the journey.
Positioning: The Winning Difference That Frames Your Story
One of the most important aspects of effective marketing is positioning or the unique frame through which your prospect views you within the overall marketplace. Here’s another way of saying it:
Positioning is expressing how you are uniquely the best choice when it comes to a certain type of person with a particular problem or desire.
The worst thing you can do is mimic or copy someone else or otherwise maintain the status quo. That’s why it’s so beneficial to think in terms of a movement. Movements are always aiming away from the status quo, which inherently makes your marketing new and different in the mind of your ideal prospect.
Veteran direct marketer Dan Kennedy calls this the “new opportunity.” It’s not an improved version of what already exists; it’s fresh (at least to the prospect). According to Kennedy, this is important because prospects have tried to solve their problem in the past and have failed. They need a “new hope” to make yet another Star Wars reference.
More recently, we have author Sally Hogshead and her catchphrase, “Different is better than better.” Trying to claim your solution is “better” than the existing competition merely reinforces the dominance of existing brands — what I call Pepsi Challenge Syndrome.
And finally, I refer to positioning as “your winning difference.” Yes, it’s new, and yes, it’s different, but it has to be the right kind of differentiation based on the shared values between your prospective customers and you.
As you learned last week, the VW Bug was not a “better” car than the Cadillac by any means. However, it was a different solution for a different type of consumer and succeeded by speaking to the counter-cultural values of young people during the 1960s.
One of the most effective positioning strategies is to choose a group of radically underserved people. This was true for those who embraced the VW Bug in the 1960s, and it remains true in modern marketing, where it’s almost impossible to find a profitable niche or market that isn’t flooded with competition.
One notable exception today? The lucrative market of consumers over the age of 50.
This is why I’m trying to motivate you to get started because this vacuum won’t last forever. And even though we’re dealing with low-hanging fruit right now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put the work in to create the most compelling positioning you can for your specific audience.
Use the F.A.S.T. Positioning Framework
It’s now time for a positioning framework within the broader Empowerment Marketing Framework. This process is designed to help you find and execute your winning difference based on the work you’ve already done to define your mission and movement.
Find Your Brand Expression
I’m a big fan of creating brands for my projects that communicate something meaningful to my ideal prospects right off the bat. Both Further and Unemployable are metaphors that express part of the overall story I’m trying to convey.
Even Copyblogger was perfectly positioned with its odd portmanteau when I launched it. Today, the historical positioning is lost on people, but it has become a brand that stands for something based on its reputation that transcends its literal meaning.
We’ve discussed Duct Tape Marketing as an example of a metaphorical brand that instantly communicates the underlying values of the company and its founder. It’s a great starting point for creating your own values-based brand.
That said, it’s not necessary to have a brand that instantly tells the story on its own. Apple and Harley Davidson are cult brands with rabid fans because of the messages they communicate beyond the name and logo.
And don’t forget Patagonia. Even though the brand refers to the South American region where the Andes mountains are (a meaningful fact to mountain climbers), Patagonia’s mission statement and first product uniquely positioned the company in the marketplace.
Announce Your Difference
Now, it’s time to announce your positioning beyond your brand. And by “announce,” I don’t mean that you claim to be different. I mean that you consistently demonstrate your difference with every message you put out into the world.
It starts with your website copy, especially your About page. Your About page is not really about you; it’s about the intersectional unity you share with your intended audience. This is where you share your values, illustrate your mission, and promise to solve their problem as their mentor. It’s almost a manifesto.
You don’t have to literally use words like mission, movement, mentor, or manifesto. That’s missing the point. Those elements are part of the mindset that guides your About page copy, which is like a mini sales page where you “sell” people on paying attention to you and signing up for your email offer.
From there, you continue to “announce” your winning difference with every piece of content you produce. All that means is you’re telling a story your people want to hear and living that story. The key to authenticity in the minds of the audience is consistently telling the right story over time.
Separate From the Status Quo
We think in terms of movements because they are always a move away from the status quo. And that means they’re inherently new and different, which means you’re satisfying one of the core tenets of effective positioning, marketing, and storytelling.
When people belong to a specific group, they demonstrate signifiers of their group identity. When I was growing up in Houston, beyond the typical Breakfast Club roles of jocks, nerds, and punks, there were the “kickers,” who dressed in western/cowboy gear even though they’d never worked on a ranch a day in their lives. Today I live in Boulder, where cyclists walk around in spandex as a signifier — even in places where you’d think it wasn’t appropriate.
With thought leadership, it’s all about the content as a signifier. And people indicate that they’re part of your “tribe” by sharing content through social media, email forwards, and other forms of word-of-mouth. What people share online reflects who they are, what they believe, and where they belong.
This gives you even more incentive to move away from the status quo with unique attitudes, framing, and language that your people can repeat to other like-minded people. These superconsumers help grow your audience and your business because you’ve armed them with new and different ways to express themselves.
Turn Away the Other
Finally, it’s just as important to turn away the wrong people as it is to attract the right people. In fact, if you’re strongly attracting and engaging with the right people, you should naturally be repelling the wrong people.
This is often where your villain comes in. People who don’t agree with your characterization of a conceptual enemy will naturally not gravitate toward you and your message. But those who do will gravitate toward you strongly. This is what you want, and you can’t be shy about stating your mission and values loudly and proudly.
Let’s look once more at the “Get a Mac” campaign from Apple. Faithful PC users hated how Apple personified the Microsoft PC, but that wasn’t the direct goal — it was just a necessary byproduct. That’s because the true aim of the campaign was to reach people who didn’t have a strong preference for what kind of home computer they used until they were asked to identify with the brand that was more like them (or what they aspired to be).
Again, this isn’t about attacking other people directly. The critical thing to remember when you move away from the status quo, people who like or are benefitting from the way things have always been aren’t going to like it. Good. That’s exactly what you want in order to become a leader to those who want a new and different direction.
With your overall positioning in place, it then comes down to how you tell each component of the overall story. That means finding the best ways to connect with your desired audience.
Premise: The Angle for Each Step of the Journey
When it comes to engaging content and copy that sells, you’ll hear people talk in terms of hooks, angles, and big ideas. Another way of thinking about it is the premise of that particular leg of the journey you’re taking your prospects in the form of a piece of content.
A premise is a proposition supporting a certain conclusion. Applied to thought leadership and storytelling, I use the word “premise” to mean an emotional expression of your overall point of view that not only attracts attention but also maintains engagement throughout every element of your content.
In other words, the premise is the embodiment of your point of view that weaves itself from headline to conclusion, tying everything together into a compelling, cohesive, and persuasive narrative. It connects your offering to the emotional center of your prospect’s brain, stimulating desire, reinforcing your credibility and authority, and encouraging one simple and inevitable conclusion — engagement with you/your product or service.
This happens when you understand how to frame your message and overall offer to mesh so tightly with your prospect’s worldview that the “this feels right” trigger is pulled subconsciously.
Great ideas are, by definition, unique. So there’s no formula for innovative concepts, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling the slickest of snake oil.
That said, great premises always have certain aspects in common. Here are four essential elements of a winning concept for a piece of content.
1. Be Unpredictable
The first thing you absolutely must have is attention. Without initial attention, nothing else you do matters.
And nothing kills attention faster than if your prospective reader, listener, or viewer thinks they already know where you’re going (remember, new and different wins). Beyond curiosity, a great premise delivers an unpredictable and unexpected element that makes it irresistible.
It all comes back to knowing who you’re talking to at an intimate level and what they are used to seeing in the market. What messages are they getting from your competition? This is what you must use as the benchmark to create your own unique and unexpected angle that forms the foundation of your premise.
You might have to dig deeper for a new and unexpected message that startles or downright fascinates people — especially your audience of older consumers, who have seen a lot already in their lifetimes — but with the current rate of change, it’s more than doable. A creative imagination and solid research skills help you see the nugget of gold no one else sees.
Part of why people tune things out is a lack of novelty, which makes even a previously desirable subject matter mundane. Taking an approach that differs from the crowd can help you stand out, and that’s why unpredictability is crucial for a strong premise.
Just remember that things continue to change rapidly. What was once unpredictable can become not only predictable but trite (think of the crypto and NFT bandwagon). This is why being able to come up with a fresh premise is a valuable skill for anyone who creates content or markets anything.
2. Be Simple
One of the fundamental rules of effective content marketing is to be clear and simple. Because a premise, by definition, is an unprecedented and grand idea, sometimes boiling it down to its essence is difficult or, worse, neglected.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to water down your big idea to the point of stupidity. That defeats the purpose of true thought leadership.
What I’m saying is you’ve got to make it so simple and clear that it travels directly into your prospect’s mind so they begin to tell themselves a story. Your content and copy must guide them and inspire them, but not beat them over the head.
So, you’ve got a grand premise that’s unpredictable and destined to shake up your market.
Reduce it to a paragraph.
Now, take it down to two sentences.
Get it even shorter.
Just do it.
At this point, you may find yourself with a great tagline. At a minimum, you’ve now got the substance for the bold promise contained in your headline that you can expand on with your content.
3. Be Real
You’ve heard that in this day of social media, you’ve got to keep it real. Speak with a human voice. Be authentic.
Be you.
You also hopefully know that social media hasn’t changed the fact that it’s about them, not you. In fact, it’s more about them than ever when you craft thought leadership content that aims to change the prevailing narrative.
How do you make that work? What makes a premise real to the right people?
First, your premise must be highly relevant to your intended audience while also being aligned directly with the core values you share with them. Without relevance, you can’t inspire meaning. And it’s meaningful messages that inspire action.
Meaning is a function of what people believe before you find them. As discussed earlier, what your ideal customers believe reflects how they view the world, and your content has to frame that view appropriately to be effective.
As a function of belief, meaning is derived from the context in which your desired audience perceives your message. That context is the heroic journey of the prospect, with your brand serving as a guide.
There’s another aspect of being “real” with your content. Your messages must communicate meaningful benefits that are also tangible. This is the second important aspect of an authentic premise, and it’s critical to help your prospects understand and connect with your message.
In this sense, tangible means authentic or actual rather than imaginary or visionary. This is the aspect of your premise that is expressed, meaning the part where you tell the story in a way that concretely injects certain information into the prospect’s mind in a specific way.
Remember the Total cereal ad from the late 1980s?
How many bowls of YOUR cereal equal one bowl of Total?
You then saw stacks of cereal bowls filled with various competing brands, reaching 12 bowls high in one case.
Powerful, right?
Instead of saying something pedestrian like, “Total has 12 times the nutrition of the leading brand,” they showed you a tangible expression of the benefit. But it doesn’t need to be done with visuals to work.
Words alone are plenty powerful to paint a picture in the mind. Think back to how Art Silverman explained the saturated fat content in a bag of popcorn. He took a dry statistic and brought it to life.
You’ll note that both examples contain the element of unpredictability and simplicity. But it’s the relevant and tangible expression of the premise that creates instant understanding.
Make your messages as real to people as possible, and you’ll create the instant understanding that all truly great premises contain. But there’s one more critical element to a premise that works.
4. Be Credible
When creating content to persuade your people (and you always should be aiming to convince or make your case), you have to hit the gut before you get anywhere near the brain. As we’ve discussed, the part that decides “I want that” is emotional and often unconscious. If your premise doesn’t work emotionally, logic will never get a chance to weigh in.
If you don’t flip that emotional switch, the sale (or other action) is yours to lose. And I mean that literally. Because our logical minds do eventually step in, usually in a way that makes us think we’re actually driven by logic in the first place. You’ll fail if your premise isn’t credible (as in it’s too good to be true).
That doesn’t mean hyperbole never works, as long as the prospect wants to believe you badly enough. That’s how desperate people in certain markets are taken advantage of.
But belief is critical in any market and with any promotion, so credibility is the final key to a winning premise — people must believe in you, just as your premise must match their beliefs.
Remember, the more innovative your idea or exceptional your offer, the more you’re going to have to prove it. This brings us right back to an unexpected, simple, and tangible expression of the benefit in a credible way.
Every box of Total cereal contains cold, hard data about the nutritional content. And although attitudes have changed toward saturated fat, Art Silverman’s popcorn claims were supported by the FDA recommendations at the time.
The kind of proof any particular premise requires varies, but the more credibility that can be baked into the premise itself, the better.
Revisit the Experience From Their Perspective
At the end of the lesson about outlining the buyer’s journey, I encouraged you to craft a narrative about the experience you will deliver from the prospect’s perspective. The idea is to create a page or two that begins with their ordinary world and explains in detail their experience of transformation all the way to the “new normal.”
Go back to that narrative again, armed with this lesson’s ideas. You’ll be able to better refine the ideal experience with the tools of presentation, positioning, and premise and begin your new initiative with a really good idea of what you need to create.