Optimizing Your Impact with Jeff Schomay There's no business like show business. And there's no other place in the world that's better at what they do than Hollywood. They make billions in one weekend. During the Great Depression the movie industry was one of the only businesses that didn't have any decline in sales. Millions of people regularly pay one hour's wages to sit silently in the dark for two hours, then they get their friends to go back with them to sit in the dark again. They make you laugh. They make you cry. They know how to make an impact and control your response.
How? Because Hollywood knows how to tell a good story (most of the time at least). We humans are hard-wired to respond to stories. Stories stand out, and they force a reaction in us, no matter what our background, culture, experience, or bias is. The way to get into a person's mind and heart is through a great story.
Do you want to make an impact? Are you trying to create a specific reaction to your product or service that you offer? Do you have trouble getting noticed, getting interest, and getting results? What you need is a great story. If Hollywood can do it, so can you.
All marketing and branding is communication, and all communication is a type of story. You just have to tell the right story and you can get people interested in anything, even sitting in the dark for two hours. So how do you become a master story crafter? How do you convert your plethora of information into a streamlined story optimized for the strongest impact? How do you communicate this story to your audience -- especially when they are not a captivated audience and you only have a few seconds to get their attention? How do you tell a story through static advertisements?
Of course you can hire a professional who is trained to do just that, and doing so is recommended. But you can get started by getting a "Hollywood mindset" and start thinking of your own material in terms of stories. The big-time Hollywood producers have always spouted rules and anecdotes like: "Show me, don't tell me." and "If the scene's about what the scene's about, you're dead." and "If you need to use exposition, you better hide it in action." and on and on. They have drawn on millennia of story-crafters to nail down strong story principles that work. These very same principles can be applied to your own message to make the results much stronger.
So start looking at your message as a story and ask yourself how to best tell it. Can you convey an idea through an image better than with a wordy description? Can you create a feeling that people will resonate with and build it into your story? Does your pitch/ad/website/article have a beginning middle and end? The next time you go to the movies, pay attention to the audience and see what gets a reaction and what the filmmakers did to get it, then try applying the same principle to your material and see what kind of reaction you get.
"If it tells, it sells."
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Written by Jeff Schomay
Inspire Your Buyer - Branding and Marketing
Optimize Your Impact. Get Better Results.
www.Inspire-Your-Buyer.com
Jeff Schomay is an expert brander and marketer and a professional film writer and director.
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