People talk a lot about barriers in the marketing world. Barriers to entry. Barriers to getting people to interact with your site. Barriers to do just about anything.
But really, how high and difficult are these barriers? How fickle are people when you’re asking them to do something?
Very bloody fickle.
With marketing communications, people’s natural tendency is to tune out. They’ve been geared that way. The famous line from Jerry Maguire is no good in this space. It's not 'You had me at "Hello"', it's 'You’re losing me at "Hello"'.
To breakthrough, marketing communications need to inspire interactivity in relevant and rewarding ways. I know people who have explored this Mercedes-Benz website in its entirety because it is so fun and interesting. And you simply can’t resist the fun of this Pringles banner. You simply need to know what’s next.
And so it is with selling great ideas, selling large projects, closing new business deals and generally getting the buy-in of any audience. I've seen brilliant pitches where the client was won over, the brand was set for success, everyone was ready to sign on the dotted line... yet the work did not happen. Why? Because there was no dotted line to sign on. There was no proposal on the table, just an idea and some costs on a slide. The client could easily have sent an email saying 'Let's proceed', 'Go for launch'... or 'I'm in – send me the bill'... but didn’t, because people are fickle.
Alternatively, I’ve seen similar presentations and similar success stories that finished with a contract, a dotted line and a signature almost immediately.
Things have to be made easy. Really easy. So easy that the audience would be crazy not to take action. Do that and you'll see the barriers drop away.