Your new customers are just one sentence away

Six years ago I wrote the worst web content of my career… for my own freelance copywriting website. I thought was bad because it looked and sounded just like all the other copywriting websites out there. I had tried and failed miserably to ‘boast’ about my business in a new and exciting way. Or so I thought.

What I had, in fact, failed to do was something completely different. I’d broken the golden rule of business communications. 

Always put your customer first. 

I had failed to step into the shoes of my potential customers and create content from their point of view. Content that spoke directly to them and their struggles. 

What about you and your business? Do you tie yourself up in knots trying to work out how to make your company look better and more attractive than your competitors? Or do you speak directly to them in their world.

What’s the ordinary world?

In storytelling speaking directly to your customers involves stepping into their shoes to explore their ordinary world. You should already know the ordinary world from films, books and other types of storytelling channels. It’s the place where we meet the hero going about her or his daily life. Giving us a sense of who they are, what life’s like for them, where they live or work and who their nearest and dearest are (or aren’t). 

Take Harry Potter. When we first meet Harry he’s living a pretty sorry existence. Sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs, under the care of the nasty Dursleys who begrudgingly took him in when he was orphaned.     

Do you know your customer’s ordinary world?

Building empathy and loyalty with your potential and existing customers will only happen when you take the time to get to know their ordinary world. Who they are, what keeps them awake at night, what they value, what they’re struggling and how this affects all areas of their life. 

The first time I learnt and implemented this me, my company and vocation changed beyond all recognition. Which goes to show that when you make your customer the hero of your story and take time to discover their ordinary world, not your idea of how great their world could be because you’ve made it so, anything is possible.