Here’s How To Get More People To Care About Your Stuff
I originally wrote this post for our team at Drift on our internal wiki (which is why the format isn’t so formal) and thought it would be good to share publicly, so hey — here it is. Oh and David Cancel and I did a podcast on this topic, too.
Here’s how to get more people to care about your stuff.
Start by understanding that no one gives a shit about what you’re doing.
Yep.
It doesn’t matter if you build products or market them.
Understanding that 99% of simply do not care is the first step to getting people to care.
The same way that David Cancel talks about “defaulting to wrong” — default to “no one will give a shit about this.”
Here’s NY Times best-selling author Steven Pressfield:
When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated. You begin to understand that writing/reading is, above all, a transaction. The reader donates his time and attention, which are supremely valuable commodities. In return, you the writer must give him something worthy of his gift to you.
When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy. You acquire the skill that is indispensable to all artists and entrepreneurs — the ability to switch back and forth in your imagination from your own point of view as writer/painter/seller to the point of view of your reader/gallery-goer/customer.
The ability to switch back and forth between your point of view and the customer.
That is the most important point in Pressfield’s quote above.
The easiest way to do this is to think about the relationship between an advertising agency and their clients.
The agency didn’t build the products they are asked to develop campaigns around.
So the agency is able to look at things with an unbiased lens.
And they understand that no one gives a shit.
Here’s the second thing to understand:
People are selfish.
Yep.
I’m selfish, you’re selfish, we’re all selfish.
Think about it — if you’re anything like me, it’s pretty damn hard to get me to try something new, buy a new product, and change the way I work.
So why would another person drop what they are doing just because we told them Drift can do XYZ?
This one seems obvious right?
But go and look at anyone’s ads and marketing messages — look at Facebook, look at website copy, etc. 99% of marketers know this to be true (you’re probably nodding along as your read this), but 99% of them don’t abide by it their marketing.
So if no one gives a shit, and people are selfish — how do you get them to care?
Focus on the super powers that people will get from using your product.
People don’t care about what your product does, they care about what they can do with your product.
^ Bernadette Jiwa said that. And that’s what it comes down to.
Once you understand that people are selfish and it’s not about your product, it comes down to thinking of your product/features as a means to an end.
Here’s an example:
If you sold snow shovels, you need to know that people are not coming to your store because they need a long plastic pole with a flat metal piece on one end and a handle on the other.
THEY WANT SNOW REMOVED. GONE. AWAY. LIKE IT NEVER SNOWED.
If someone could snap their fingers and have the snow off their back steps, think they’d come to your your store and buy your snow shovel?
Hell no.
You need to sell the benefit (the snow going away) not the feature (the long plastic pole).
So, when when we release a new feature, think about the superpower it gives to a customer.
Our integration with HubSpot isn’t about seeing your Drift data inside of HubSpot.
It’s about an easy way generate more revenue — since you can convert more leads by following up with people who have had a conversation on your website.
Imagine you could follow up with everyone who walked into your store and left without buying something?
That’s the story to focus on.
And it doesn’t always have to be complicated or turn in to some psychology experiment.
1–800-Contacts promotes their mobile app with this message:
One app. Three taps. New contacts
That’s it!
Imagine if a “marketer” was asked to write that message?
That’s me, Dave.
I lead marketing at Drift.
If you got anything out of this post (or hated it and want to tell me) my email is dg@drift.com and davegerhardt on Twitter. Say hey.
