Always start with the WHY.

Imagine being the CEO or CMO of a top brand and while waiting to board your flight for a business meeting, someone walks up to you in the waiting lounge and says "you're the CEO or CMO of X company right?". He/she goes on to talk about how much they love your brand and how awesome your products and services are after exchanging pleasantries.

At that moment, you are enveloped by this euphoria of achievement and fulfilled purpose - thinking to yourself "this is great feedback" but just before you both part ways to board your respective flights, the stranger ask "WHY does your company do what it does?". 

Before you could start explaining the idea behind each product/service, the airport announcer calls for boarding and you both go your separate ways. While in flight, you seem to have difficulty shaking off that question from echoing over and over again in your mind - then you make up your mind to throw it to the team on Monday to get everyone's perspective. 

WHY does your company do what it does? 

As someone who is responsible for creating content strategy for your organization, this question does not necessarily refer to your company's overall objectives, marketing goal, product or service offerings. I'm referring to your company's beliefs. Why do you think what you are doing is better than the other company? Why does it matter? Why should the customer consider what you offer instead of the other options available. What's your purpose? What drives your brand to do what it does?

 Most marketing managers focus on speaking about "what" the company does and "how" it does it. Talking about WHAT the brand does and HOW it's done is easy - however, we tend to leave out the WHY in our communication strategy and materials. I'm sure those brands you patronize often, did not gain your loyalty just by having a great product or a beautiful logo. I think they gained your loyalty because of their attitudes, beliefs, principles and standard. So the question is, what does your brand stand for? What do you believe in? 

To have a strong digital strategy, it is important you start communicating from the "WHY" perspective. This will help you emotionally communicate and connect your audience to why your brand is driven to offer the products or solutions it creates.  

Your audience are more interested in the WHY. 

According to SocialMediaToday "customers are more interested and want to be a part of why you do what you do and not necessarily a part of what you do or how you do it". People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. Your audience are more likely to become loyal fans if you speak to them from this stand point. 

Don't get me wrong, talking about the 'what' & 'how' will also get the audience's attention and will lead to increase in sales - but that's all. Your brand will permanently remain at the acquisition stage, you'll always be acquiring new customers without having any form of customer retention, loyalty or referral, because you're not emotionally connecting with your audience. I'll suggest you reverse the order of your marketing strategy and communication to start with the WHY. 

Try talking to your audience about your organization's beliefs and how they power each of your teams and products, this will show your organization's authenticity to your audience since today's audience do not necessarily pay attention to salesy communication messages. By doing this, you would not only attracts customers who would buy your product or service for the first time, but also those who will become super loyal fans of your brand. 

Like this post if you feel this way or drop a comment with your own perspective.