Why you need to invest in finding the hook
Author
Jacque Wallace
Senior Director, B2B
Author
Jacque Wallace
Senior Director, B2B
Back when I was young and dinosaurs used to roam the earth (Do kids even say that anymore or is it just one more way to age myself?), a lot of the focus of conversation in the world of PR and brand building was about attention.
The fight about the value of earned media vs paid (Rest in peace – you’re gone but sadly not yet forgotten), the role of influencers and employees in brand building, the role of thought leadership and taking a stand for something. All of these debates were ultimately about one thing: attention. How do you capture it, hold on to it, measure it, and translate it into business growth?
Same fight, new battlefield
When it comes to attracting attention, the way the doing gets done has changed radically over the years. Channels have fragmented, diversified, and led to increasingly siloed and individualized media ecosystems for buyers. Influencer marketing has grown (albeit more slowly in the world of B2B). But the fundamental marketing challenge of how to stand out and be remembered hasn’t.
At this point, it might be tempting to talk about generative AI or some of the exciting shiny new tools that marketers have at their fingertips. But to be honest, I’d rather not. I’m no technophobe, and I think all tools have their place in a well-rounded marcomms team’s toolbox. It’s just that I think it’s far more important to focus on the real starting point. The “what” that hasn’t changed, even as the “how” has.
The need to find a compelling hook.
The need to identify that one thing that connects with your audience’s experience (be it in the world of work, or the world more broadly) and really lean into it. To me, finding this is the key that unlocks the answer to the question Joel Harrison so rightly articulated at B2B Ignite: “why would anyone choose to watch this?”
So, how do you do it?
It starts with a deep understanding of your buyers. Not just “who forms the buying committee?” and “which formats do they prefer to receive supplier communications in?”, but “why did they get into this line of work?” and “what keeps them up at night?”. What gives them the Sunday scaries? How do they see themselves and their work that they wish other people understood?
This audience insight work can be tempting to skip over, because budgets and timelines are tight (were they ever not?), or the business has already decided what it wants to say. But it’s worth stopping to understand what the downside risk of that choice is. Your campaign might still be OK, and might land some of the time with some of the buyers. You might get lucky, and it might work. Or you might not. You might be the unmemorable wallpaper that is easily ignored or forgotten. Yours might be the 10th supplier email that gets deleted, rather than the one that gets opened. So, ask yourself, can you really afford to skip the audience insights step?
