I
once got caught in the trap of leading with the business problem. It’s easy to fall into because it’s logical
to state the problem, then how your product fixes it. What I found though, was that leading with
the problem didn’t work.
Our
business provided a solution that improved customer service experiences
while cutting costs. My team developed
messaging we called “The Service / Cost Dilemma.” The premise was, on the one hand you know
providing better service is necessary to differentiation, on the other, better service costs more to provide. We knew our solution solved the problem.
We
began with an image of a frustrated looking man with a devil on one
shoulder and an angel on the other. The
campaign was a flop. We changed the
image to a business person standing at a fork in the road, unable to decide
which way to go. It also flopped.
By
leading with the issue, the take-away was a focus on the problem, not the
solution. Emotionally, our audience was repelled
by the depressed face and the feeling of confusion and indecision.
Next
we tried images of people screaming into their phones or rolling their eyes at
bad customer service. The idea was,
“this is what will happen to your customers if you don’t use our platform.” These campaigns also flopped. The images may have caught people’s
attention, but they reinforced the negative and tried to frighten our audience into buying our product.
Finally, we reversed our
strategy. We began leading with: “Experiences That Make People Happy.” The focus was on the benefits of using our
product, not how bad it is without it. We used images of people doing things that
made them smile. The most popular one was a lady sitting on a couch next to a giant chicken.
Leading
with the business problem may be the logical approach, but what works is: “Here’s where you want to be, we’re going to show you how to
get there.” People are motivated by emotion, not logic. And when you think about it, who wouldn’t
like to plop down on that couch between that lady and chicken?
