Learning from a Beautiful Mind
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.
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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 not, you can’t borrow mine, so stop asking!