I know it's early in the morning and the last thing you want right now is a lecture. So I won't lecture. Instead, let me paint a scene of tranquility, like the Chinese yoga ladies do.
Imagine we're sitting in a sidewalk bistro in Paris. It's a glorious early summer day, and the air is awash with jasmine, cigarette smoke, profanity, accordion music, and diesel fumes. And love, of course.
You have a vermouth-cassis in front of you, but you're not drinking it, not even a sip. That's because your mouth has been sewn shut. All you can do is listen. To me.
I'll be kind. Promise.
First, let me acquaint you with a communication term called "sensemaking." Basically, people approach the world with a great deal of uncertainty and use communication to help reduce the uncertainty and help them make sense of their world.
Now, we like to all think as businesspeople that we know our market and understand what goes on in it, but at the very least we're continually afraid that we don't understand. You see this behavior all the time, especially from salespeople, who are nothing if not skittish as a new kitten when the competition unloads its latest innovation.
So what we do is communicate with people we know within that market in an attempt to make it make sense. We ask the field. We leverage our network. We collect qualitative data. We grab some CI.
Of course, all these sources are uncertain and looking to make sense of the world around them, too, so there's a sort of mutual reassurance that goes on. It's like a group of settlers on the prairie, forming a circle with guns pointed outward and inching back towards the fire. All sides come away not necessarily understanding the world better but feeling like they understand it better, and that's the important thing.
The application that has for marketers is that it's very valuable to position yourself as an entity that can help a customer make sense out of their market.
How? By breaking it into pieces, and then by collecting all the pieces and putting them into a coherent whole. By identifying customers and opening a dialogue with them. By identifying the key messages those customers want to hear. By identifying the desired end results of communication acts -- everything from an elevator speech to an annual report -- and working towards them.
Most people view the world as fragmented and dissonant. One of the prime goals of successful marketing communication is to make it less so.
I have a favorite quote along these lines, from the Scottish poet/mystic/wacko Thomas Carlyle: "On earth, the broken arcs; in Heaven, the perfect sphere." It all makes sense up there, in other words.
It can make more sense down here, too. It starts with the understanding that people very badly want it to make sense.
Here's a real-world story to illustrate and end things. My friend Chris has to do a series of very complex reports every year analyzing his company's sales potential. Now, Chris is a pretty talented guy and could write these for semaphore flags if you asked. His first boss liked a highly regimented, stats-heavy approach, so he spun them that way. Lots of work, whole bunch of data, and they really made sense of the markets -- if you invested the time in them.
Chris has a new boss who likes things simple and pretty -- big ol' pie charts. To do things his new boss' way Chris has had to dumb down everything he does so that it can fit in a big ol' pie chart. There's less analysis, fewer actionable conclusions, a narrower scope, and bullet points instead of paragraphs. Instead of a perfect sphere it's a meager collection of broken arcs -- stained glass, mind you, but broken arcs nonetheless.
You can guess the rest. The public loves the new reports. Chris doesn't.
Hey, sensemaking is a two-way street. Your publics can't make sense of the world if they can't make sense of your stuff. If they're too dumb or lazy to make sense of your stuff, say (under your breath, please), "What a bunch of tools," and simplify it. Half a world is better than none.
Okay, I'll let you talk now. Where'd I put that scissors?
No comments:
Post a Comment