How to Have Greater Impact Through Marketing

THE BEST WAY TO CAPTURE ATTENTION

If you only had 30 seconds to attempt to reach out to?a parent on Facebook?and inspire them or motivate them to take action and sign up for music lessons at your school- what would you say??Would you talk about how much kids love lessons at your studio? Would you talk about your caring and passionate teachers? Perhaps you would talk about the quality lesson experience you provide.

Mike Grande of Rock out Loud made a recent 30 promotional video that has received high praises from both music school owners and customers.?Mike drew his inspiration from a Disney commercial whose origins, I believe, can be traced back to?Apple’s?1997 Think Different campaign. I’ll talk about the Disney and Apple commercials in a moment.?

?

THE OLD MODEL OF MARKETING

If you grew up in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and even ’90s, you grew up in an era where marketing was often either about declarations of quality or an attempt to impress with the features and details of a product. Marketing was often aspirational. Buy our product and you’ll look like the model in the commercial or feel like the football star who eats Wheaties for breakfast. I believe many music school owners reference these childhood memories to guide them when it comes to marketing their teaching studios. Some beat their chests and say we’re the best in town. Others flaunt the features and details of their music lessons. This is a familiar, yet dated approach.

?

THE NEW MODEL OF MARKETING

Marketing no longer appeals to just the head. Marketing no longer relies on logic as a way to motivate customers to take action and buy. Marketing in 2021 often focuses on appealing to the heart.?Appealing to the heart through story.?Stories have always been an effective way to capture and hold our attention. The human mind seems to be wired to respond and absorb stories. Many marketing experts say this change in marketing can be traced back to the Apple commercial I referenced a moment ago. Apple’s Think Different campaign in the late ’90s.

?

THINK DIFFERENT

In the commercial, we hear a quiet string pad with a slow minor-key piano motif in the background with slow motion black n white film featuring the likes of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, John Lennon, Albert Einstein. Mohamad Ali, Bob Dylan, and a few other cultural icons and trailblazers. The narrator says “Here’s to the crazy ones, the rebels, the misfits, the ones who see things differently. While some might see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the ones who think they’re crazy enough to change the world are the ones that do.?The black and white film fades out and all we see in white text is “think different” with the Apple logo. The brand, the product isn’t introduced until the end of the commercial. The commercial isn’t even about the product!

?

APPEAL TO YOUR CUSTOMERS HEART

Talk about gutsy. In 1997 IBM and Microsoft were using the traditional marketing model of chest-beating and highlighting their features. “Our computer is the fastest, and most durable on the market with 200 Gigabytes of processing power.” Apple instead painted a picture of greatness, spun an inspiring message, and said you too can achieve greatness by being your true self, by being fearless, by being different, and by expressing your uniqueness with our computer. It’s also an aspirational and inspirational message.?

By buying our computer you’ll feel like you can achieve greatness. The computer design, with its curves and colorful translucent encasing itself was an expression of thinking outside the box, of thinking differently. You can express your uniqueness on any computer but it was Apple who introduced this idea and story of using a computer to unleash your inner genius. If we buy their story, we’re more likely to buy their product.?

?

PAINTING PICTURES AND TUGGING ON HEARTSTRINGS

Mike Grande uses this similar approach of painting a picture that tugs on the heartstrings of his ideal client but doesn’t make any mention of his product, his music lessons, until the very end. He makes no mention of his engaging lessons and highly qualified teaching staff.?

?

MARKETING THAT CAN MAKE YOU CRY

Mike recently posted his promotional video in the Facebook group,?Music Lessons and Marketing.?Mike mentioned in his post that he was inspired to make his video after seeing a Disney World commercial that he claims made him cry. Now I know Mike. He’s a Sicilian from New York. He’s a tough guy. How could a 30 second commercial about Disney World, an overcrowded, overpriced amusement park make him cry? Perhaps the thought of waiting in long lines for hours with fussy kids is what brought him to tears.?

?

Mike sent me a link to the commercial which followed a similar approach as the Apple commercial. In the Disney commercial, however, the product Disney World is looming in the background but like Apple, isn’t revealed until the end.?

?

WHAT DISNEY WORLD CAN TEACH US ABOUT MARKETING

In the Disney commercial, you hear a piano crawling along playing When You Wish Upon a Star and a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, saying “come on Daddy, it’s Cinderella” and you realize this little girl is at Disney World running towards a woman dressed up as Cinderella. The camera zooms out, and the video of the little girl is actually playing on an iPhone. The camera zooms out more and it’s revealed that it’s a father watching the video on his iPhone while sitting in the little girl’s bedroom.

The little girl, however, is no longer so little. She’s now a teenager and packing her bags to leave for college. The girl calls out to her father with a touch of concern in her voice “Dad”. But he doesn’t look up from his phone. He fights back tears and his daughter sits down next to him on her bed and rests her head on his shoulder. The dad cracks a sarcastic joke “Yeah, I’m not really going to miss you that much” and his daughter hugs him.?The commercial cuts back to the memory of the Disney video of the Dumbo ride spinning against a clear blue sky with text that reads “Because they’re only little for a little while.” and the Disney World logo fades in for just a second or two.?

Disney World is often viewed as a painful rite of passage for parents. It’s expensive, it’s crowded, it’s hot and the lines are long, the foods overpriced. Disney isn’t selling an amusement park in this commercial.?They’re selling an opportunity to create a lifelong magical memory.?

?

HOOKING YOUR AUDIENCE WITH STORY

Mike Grande takes his cue from?Disney World?and goes all-in with story marketing in his commercial.?Story marketing?is when you literally tell a story, like the Disney commercial, or inspire people so that they tell themselves a story, which the Apple commercial does. In the Rock Out Loud video, the story positions mom as the hero. Not the child, which I think is a compelling strategy. He makes no mention of his music school until, just like Apple and just like Disney world, until the very end.?

?

CREATING A PROMOTIONAL VIDEO FOR YOUR MUSIC SCHOOL FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE

I want to point out that Mike’s video only cost a few hundred dollars to make. He created a storyline and he hired an editor to find some stock videos to mix in with his own videos from his school.?

Mike’s school is called Rock out Loud so you might expect a generic rock instrumental to be used as the background music for his video. Instead, Mike uses music that sounds right out of a Disney movie. Music that’s going to appeal to a parent’s heart.?

?

SOMETIMES MARKETING ISN’T ABOUT MUSIC LESSONS

Just like the Apple commercial, Mike’s video opens with a string pad with a slow-moving piano but transitions into grandiose orchestral music with a choir. We first see what appears to be a woman in her 30’s with an older woman looking at photos. It quickly becomes apparent that this is a mother and daughter. There are cut-away shots of the mother playing with her 5 or 6-year-old daughter. It cuts back to the older woman and her daughter now looking at an iPhone. Another cut-away shot shows a young, maybe 11-year-old girl on stage, singing in a rock band.?

The video cuts back to the older woman and her daughter watching on an iPhone and the two smile at the same time as they watch their daughter and granddaughter performing with her rock band. The video cuts back to the daughter and her bandmates, and text appears that reads “Sometimes it’s not just about music lessons.” We see the girl wave to the camera and finally, the Rock Out Loud Logo appears with the text. “Rock Out Loud…a place where memories are made.”

?

WHAT YOUR CUSTOMER REALLY CARES ABOUT

Mom’s don’t care about music lessons. They care about what music lessons will do for their child. Mike makes his video not from his perspective but from the perspective of the mom. He isn’t even selling music lessons in this video. He says point blank “it’s not about music lessons.” It’s about creating memories.?

?

MARKETING AND STATUS

In Mike’s video, it’s about creating. memories not just for the child but for the child’s mother and grandmother. The video tells a story of a mom who’s bringing joy to her own mother. It’s a story of increased status. The granddaughter’s status is increased because she’s performing with a rock band in a music video. How cool is that? Wait until her friends at school see this. The mother’s status is increased because her mother, the grandmother, is looking favorably at her and is proud of her for being such a good mother. The grandmother’s status has increased because she now has a great story to share with her friends. If grandma knows how to use Facebook, she’s likely to share the video.?

?

FOCUS ON WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS CARE ABOUT

The big takeaway for me from this video is the importance of marketing from the customer’s perspective. Using story to hook the viewer. To pull them into the narrative. A story that your ideal client is going to care about. I want to just say that again because it’s the essence of good marketing. Good marketing is when you deliver a message that your ideal client cares about. Your ideal client cares less about the details and the quality of your music lessons. They care more about how it’s going to impact their child and change their life.?

?

EMOTIONAL MARKETING MOVES CUSTOMERS TO TAKE ACTION

This approach allows you to speak to your customers’ emotions. Quality and details speak to customers’ need to justify their purchase. Disney, Apple, and Rock out Loud only appeal to the emotions to get people to take the first step. That first step is to go to their website or store. Once there, you can amplify these emotions and finally introduce the details and quality to help people justify their purchase.?

?

UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS CORE DESIRES

Apple’s story is you too can tap into your inner greatness and express your uniqueness by buying our computer. Disney World’s story is short.?Your children will grow up and leave home before you know it.?Seize the moment by coming to Disney World. Rock Out Loud’s story is that their music lessons and performances can elevate a child’s sense of self and bring a family together and create shared memories.

?

WHAT’S YOUR STORY

What’s your story? How do you help kids? How do you make the world a better place through music lessons??Your marketing will be more impactful and more effective if you can create compelling answers to these questions.??

?

?