Belonging, Buzz, Repeat

Some years ago I was stunned to learn that it cost my organization nearly 10K to attract a new client.  At the time, my shiny new car cost that much!  (Granted, it was a Toyota Echo, and ok, it was many years ago but I digress.)

Now not every organization spends that much per new visitor, but it always costs either time, effort or money to bring new people in the door. Considering the investment your organization is making, whatever it is, you want to make the most of that investment by ensuring that every program you craft does at least one of these things:

• Creates the feeling that your visitors are more than welcome, they belong

• Sparks word of mouth buzz because people keep thinking and talking about what they experienced

• Inspires repeat visitation as keep creating experiences meaningful to your community?

 When you make your stories interpretive, rather than just informational, they stick in the mind.  It’s like a song you can’t get out of your head, except in this case, the song is the thought you provoked with your programing.   If you’re ready to make the stories you tell seriously sticky, here are the things you need to be thinking about.

1)    Define your audience specifically.  Identify what audience has in common with one another, and with your story.

2)    Pick one thing you want them to keep thinking about.  Studies show time and again that people can only absorb so much at once.  Too many takeaways and you dilute their attention decreasing the chance they will retain anything other than a feel-good vibe.

3)    Kill your darlings.  Or at least be prepared to. We the speakers often love our subjects and we want to give our audiences value so we rush headlong into the most common mistake. We firehose our audience with all of our facts and stories.  Be ready to cut parts of your talk that you love, but that aren’t contributing to your one takeaway.

4)    Be relevant and relatable.  You want the audience to have their own ‘aha’ moments. Their own “oh I know just what that’s like”. Their own “yes I care about that too!”

 Our audiences aren’t just empty glasses waiting to be filled with our subject matter, no matter how skillfully wrapped in story.  But when you use interpretation to make those stories relatable, you invite the audience in.  When you create opportunities for listeners to imagine themselves walking the path of the hero of your story, when you ask them to consider something that has no easy answer, something similar to a situation in their own lives, that’s when your stories begin to stick in the mind.  Like a tune they keep humming.  That’s sticky storytelling.