HOW TO TELL THE STORY OF YOUR BUSINESS' GOOD WORK IN THE WORLD — Part 2 If your business is doing genuinely good work in the world, the way you speak about it is critical to the success of that work. Last week I wrote about the need for holding a genuine connection with your audience. That’s good marketing—holding a conversation of real connectivity with your ideal client (or ideal customer, user, guest, student, donor, supplier, etc.). The connectivity we establish is the medium through which our messages are conveyed. If the connection is flimsy, some or all of the messages slip through the cracks. “Genuine” is a key word here. BECAUSE the work you are doing is genuinely good—aligned with nature and a healthy humanity—the connection to your audience must follow suite and also be genuine. To *genuinely* connect, we need to know who we’re talking to. Who IS your ideal client, really? Set aside the algorithms and data mining for now. We’re going back to the holistic roots of HUMAN CONNECTION. Let’s start with some basic demographics. Here are a few questions any organization should be able to answer about their ideal client: - What stage (age) of life are they in? - What’s their gender? - Where and how do they live? - What formal education and/or life experience does this person have? - What’s their professional life like? Then, when we’re telling the story of our good work in the world, we’ve got to know: why do they care? We start to find this out when we know: What results do they want from what we’re offering them (our product, service, etc.)? Know at least two or three of the specific results they want—tangible and quantifiable outcomes, as well as emotional and mental results. Having the answer to these questions is just the beginning of establishing a genuine connection in your marketing. Next week I’ll carry on, and we’ll go deeper into your ideal client’s human experience to better understand WHY they care about your organization’s purposeful work—and how to talk to them about it in your marketing…