Do you like the movie trailer that shows you all the good parts that happen in the movie? And then when you go to see the full length movie, there is nothing more. No thrill of discovery that you get from finding out how all the pieces fit together. There is just nothing more to the story. It becomes just a repeat of the trailer in long form. But now it becomes a bit of a bore, because you already know the story and you have seen all the exciting parts.
Contrast that experience with the movie trailer that carefully selects its sneak peaks to get your attention. It could be a still scene with a remarkable image. It could be the emotion conveyed from the facial expressions. It can be carefully curated music to communicate the right feeling about it all. But the snippets do not tell the story. They capture your attention and arouse an interest in what is behind it all.
Your demand generation strategy must follow the same approach. First things first. You need to focus on capturing attention. And capturing attention is all about planting the seed, that idea which will cause your prospective buyer to think in a certain way, and in a certain direction. Which then leads them to postulate some kind of question of themselves. Only then will they have to take the next step of engagement in order to answer it. And this is what you want.
Have you every had any say to you – “I am glad you ask that”? That is what I am talking about.
If you expect to capture attention, you need to concentrate on planting seeds that can be nurtured to grow. And as nature has shown, not all seeds can be planted in all growing conditions. The growing conditions that work for some seeds just do not work for others. It’s all about the mix of soil type, sunlight and water that dictate what can grow where. So don’t bother trying to plant the whole tree. It may not take at all. Rather, it is all about finding the right seed that will grow in your environment.
In generating demand for your product offering, it is all about planting the right ideas for your prospective buyers, and seeking the ideal place of fertility in their mind. This is where you undoubtedly have to invest continual efforts to discover which ideas can germinate most effectively. Knowing the buyer persona is just a starting point; as any buyer persona that you create will be a mix of facts and assumptions.
So in order to effectively capture that precious and fleeting attention that you need to engage further, it comes down to engineering a process that can effectively derive the right seeds to plant. In the movie industry, smart companies such as Legendary Entertainment Applied Analytics are using data analytics to put the right trailer together. In agriculture, Monsanto is turning seed planting into an engineered process. And whatever market that you serve, an engineered demand generation process will keep things from getting derailed.