The no-neck view of the world
- Sat, October 28 2006
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
Have you ever noticed how very young kids’ drawings usually don’t feature a person’s neck? Have you wondered why?
My theory is that if you’re two or three years old and your perspective is pretty low to the ground, you don’t see people’s necks when you look up. You see a head sitting on arms.
I can’t think of a better analogy for marketing. Marketing mandates that we look at the world through the eyes of our audience and communicate from that perspective. It can be hard to tear ourselves away from the comfort of our long-necked world view, but we must.
Believe me, I know how difficult it is. I forget the marketing principles I tout all the time. The brilliant folks out at ASU (namely a brilliant person by the name of Gregory Neidert) recently reminded me I was violating all my own marketing principles on Network for Good’s web site. Where was the audience perspective? Wouldn’t people who come to the site want it to know if it was safe or reliable? Wouldn’t they want to know if other people trusted the site? And why wasn’t the “search for your favorite charity”—the reason most people come to our site—the most prominent thing on the page? Errrr, because I forgot to do as I say.
Here is the way our site was, and how it is now. Since we started working completely from the audience perspective, conversion is up 30%. If you haven’t read it, get this book from those ASU folks.
Comments
I experience that humbling moment of not walking my own talk on a regular basis—it takes a class act to own up to it. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Audience perspective is important if we want to overcome sales barriers and objections.
Regards,
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