I’m a big fan of Nancy Duarte. If you don’t know who she is, check out Duarte Design, www.duarte.com a progressive and very successful graphic design firm built around Nancy’s passion for the art of presentation. She has a few great books out and the central theme of her work involves studying the techniques of the great storytellers throughout history and breaking them down into a formula that can be replicated.
Her recent blog post on linkedin entitled “Like Yoda you Must Be” ( read it here) inspired me to explore her concepts and how they apply to my own work performing visual marketing and demonstration for building products.
The Mentor Archetype
A good marketer, or salesperson will tell you without a doubt that a true product evangelist is an educator, a mentor. Yoda, for example, is a great example of the mentor. When Yoda trained Luke Skywalker, he did not waste any time boasting about his own credentials, His 800 years of mastery was not the focus of the training, his young student was the hero.
Your Audience is the Hero, not You
Duarte explains the most common mistake she sees after seeing hundreds of presentations. The presenters focus their presentation on themselves. She expounds us to remember that as the presenter, we are not the most important person in the room, we are merely the mentor. If we assume the role of mentor and make our audience, our prospective customers the heroes, we can resonate much more soundly.
Your Products are not the Hero Either, they are the Sword
If you could place yourself in the role of mentor the next time you present your products to the world, position your potential customers as the hero. Offer them your products as a sword with which they can achieve their goals and you will be much farther along than your competitors.
The Internet is Where Building Product Decisions are Being Made
An Architect Searches for A Product . . .
The specifier at XYZ architects is looking for a product in your category and does a google search. The results lead her to many web sites, most of which are rather mundane and full of bad product photos, marketing fluff and boring technical specs.
She Comes Across your Web Site
She moves on to find your web site, but instead of the typical experience, she is presented with beautiful photorealistic 3d rendering of the product she is looking for and she is a little bit impressed. Even though the product is just a widget that will never be seen once the building is completed, it is presented on the web site with pride, and it actually looks beautiful in it’s own way.
She Finds a Video!
She then notices a video next to the product. Now that same beautiful 3d rendering is full motion video and she watches for 2 minutes as she is presented with information on what the product is, how it works and why she should choose it. To her, the choice is obvious, if they take this much pride in presenting the product in the finest manner possible, it must be the best choice.
View Your Web Site in her Shoes, Are you Impressed?
Video on the internet is skyrocketing in popularity. As internet connections get fast and mobile smartphone use has overtaken desktop use, the time is now to create beautiful content. Architects and DIY customers are using the internet to make buying decisions and visual impressions are of utmost importance. Visit your company web site in their shoes, are you impressed?
Jason Yana Studios specializes in what we call visual construction marketing. Our experience and expertise is in being your consulting partner in providing a beautiful end-to-end customer experience which will increase sales and decrease problems in the field. For a free consultation, fill out the form below to make an appointment. Do it now, before your competition does.
My wife, Lizzy, is a fabulous, exciting and dynamic human being. I tell you this, not because I like to talk about her, which I most certainly do, but because she is my secret weapon. Along with the myriad advice she has given me in business, sales and how to live a life of abundance, joy and integrity, she has become a very valuable tool in my work providing visual demonstrations of building products.
The Silent Marketing Killer
Due to the highly technical and specialized nature of most building products, it can be a great challenge to demonstrate exactly what the product in question is, how it works and why someone should specify or purchase it. Like myself, if you are involved in manufacturing, selling or using building products, you have probably spent most of your life looking at things like cad details, assembly drawings and other highly technical marketing materials. When you get too close to something like this, there is a very real danger which can develop. This silent marketing killer is a communication breakdown between you and the casual observer of your marketing materials. The decision makers you are trying to influence are busy people and they have not spent the thousands of hours looking at your products.
Your Brain Loves Your Products
It is very difficult to step outside of yourself and view your product marketing information as an outsider. To resonate fully with your target audience, you must get in their shoes, see what they see and think the way that they think. This cannot be done . . . not really. Unless you have found some new technology that allows you to jack into the brain of another person, you need to find the next best solution. Your brain has been looking at your products for so long that it has developed the ability to interpret the visual representations of your products. Your brain loves your products, because over the years, like a muscle, it has adapted to see more than what is actually on that catalog page, spec data sheet, or web site product page. Your brain sees that product on the page and it sees all the thousands of decision that were made creating it. So what is the next best thing to wiping your brain clean of all these biases? Lizzy is . .. let me explain.
[convertkit]
You’re not looking for this reaction
Assume your audience has no knowledge of your product
Most of the time, I am trying to present and demonstrate a product in a manner that looks visually appealing, but that is far from enough. At the same time, the goal is to demonstrate how the product works and why someone should want it. I know that the architect, engineer, contractor or consumer who is viewing my work is most likely a busy, impatient person who does not need to be bored with overly technical jargon, empty rhetoric or unnecessary marketing fluff. I know that I only have seconds to make a favorable first impression, and less than 2 minutes to take them from zero understanding of the product, to fully grasping the what, the how and the why of that product. So what does this have to do with Lizzy? Let me show you the Lizzy test.
The Lizzy Test
Lizzy is a perfect example of a type A personality. She has no patience for boring technical information. She once asked me how they get mail from place to place and I went into this huge lecture about the post net barcode, adc distribution centers, zip + 4 routing and automation, etc. Her beautiful eyes glazed over and I lost her immediately. She didn’t want to hear about the details, she wants to see the big picture and she certainly doesn’t want her time wasted. I realized very quickly that I had a gold mine on my hands here. I took an animation I was working on which showed how a metal fire-stopping product worked. It was a 2 minute video which first shows the product, some bullet items highlighting it’s main features and benefits and then a step by step installation animation which shows how it is installed in a wall. Her attention was caught by the visual quality and photorealism of the product rendering and she followed along quietly. After the 2 minute video was finished, I asked her if she understood what the product was and how it worked? She matter-of-factly responded “Of course, it keeps fire from going from one side of the wall to the other even if the structure above moves up or down, I’m not stupid”
Success!
Since then, I don’t let anything leave my studio without having passed “The Lizzy Test”
Do you have a Lizzy to preview your marketing materials to make sure you aren’t missing the target?
If your product is any darn good, it makes someone’s life better, if only for a moment. Ponder, if you will, for a moment how your product is going to make a customer’s life better in some way. Will it save them time? will it save them money? Will it make their home, or commercial building more efficient, more attractive, more structurally sound? Are you thinking about it? hold that thought . .
Marketing is Empathy
Knowing with whom you are speaking to is crucial for marketing. This holds true with the images you use of your products. Understanding the problems, difficulties and challenges of your customers is a great place to start. What are the needs your product is fulfilling and what are the feelings behind those needs? If your visual communications can speak to those feelings, you will make a more intimate connection and have far more success.
Example #1 Strength & Stability
This product, like many I am asked to illustrate, is never seen once a home is built. It goes under the floors and provides superior durability and strength. To communicate the feeling of stability and strength to a homeowner, we decided to take them to a kitchen. A kitchen they could see their family cooking, gathering and dining in. Using photorealistic rendering, we then peeled away the floor, showing what is beneath the kitchen of their dreams – the solid foundation on which it sits.
In the second illustration we lifted the kitchen off the floor and used arrows to depict the weight of the situation. In the final layout the actual weights of each item are estimated and printed on the arrows themselves to further drive home the concept.
Example #2 Protection – Safety – Weatherability
So many building products are about keeping out the elements. Keeping water out of a structure is always one of the biggest challenges. What homeowner or building owner doesn’t worry about leaks?
Regards and I hope you make an emotional connection today.
-JY
About the Author :
Jason Yana has 2 decades of experience in architectural technology, 3d graphics and construction marketing. This unique combination provides highly-effective visual representations of building products that fuel marketing and support efforts.
His award-winning body of work informs, inspires and educates building product customers.
Arm your sales and marketing staff with the tools they need to stand out in the crowd and inform prospective customers with the best tools, learning aids and laser focused marketing, sales and support materials available
Early Disclaimer – Yes I am writing this article trying to convince you that my services are valuable and necessary. You can look at this as self-serving, and it is, but I don’t write about the value of visual marketing because I provide it as a service, I provide visual marketing as a service because I believe it is paramount to success in the marketing of building products. If all my writing does is make you take a second look at how your present your products to the world, I count that as a success.
Step One – Give them excellent visual representations of your products
I’m sure you have the most talented people out there on the streets showing your products off to your prospective customers and regardless of how talented they are, they still need ammunition. Whether you hire the best consultants and product photographers to showcase your products, or someone like me to do great 3d renderings of your products – you just have to do something to make a positive visual impression. It sounds so simple, but it is often overlooked. It is most often overlooked for products that aren’t meant to be pretty – the utilitarian things that will never be seen once a project is finished – I think it’s more important than ever in this case to act like McDonald’s and make something that isn’t necessarily pretty look awesome in your advertising and marketing. See this article to see what I mean about McDonald’s.
Step Two – Give them great details
Construction details provided by the manufacturer are a big part of sales and marketing. Sure, they can be a mundane pdf or dwg download that you bury seven levels deep on your web site, and that is fine, but think for a moment about what that says about your products, your loyalty to the success of your customers and your commitment to making this world a better place by providing a product that adds value in some way to the world. You and your colleauges have most likely lost many nights of sleep hashing out every detail about how your product is best used in the real world. That moment when the sales pitches are over, the dust settles, your product is specified and the designer is trying to use it correctly and the contractor is actually holding it in his hand – that moment is really what matters. If you don’t show that you take pride in this very serious moment, you are putting your company in jeopardy. Imagine now, looking at this a different way, creating beautiful details in crisp life-like 3d. You don’t pick the simplest application of your product or the simplest thing to draw to just get it over with, you show the down and dirty real-world details. Of course, the final decisions on how the building is designed and detailed lies with the engineer and architect of record, but so does the decision to use your product again.
Step Three – Demonstrate with the fourth dimension
Video, people just love it. I have approached many people trying to give them the elevator speech about what I do, why I do it, and how I can help them improve their business with varying success. Nothing works better than handing them my ipad which is loaded with a two minute video reel of my work. They sit quietly and watch for way more time than they will sit and listen to me babble. Many architects and contractors are visual learners and they are way more likely to remember what the heck your product is, how it is used, and most importantly why it should be used. Social media marketing is great, but have something to share. Things are becoming more and more about the mobile internet – video and animation is perfect for this.
I humbly appreciate you taking your time to read this and please don’t hesitate you let me know what steps I missed to properly arm a sales and marketing staff to hit the streets well-prepared. Leave a comment below, call and holler at me or drop a message in the box that slides up on the bottom right.
