Too Many Hazelnuts and Telling the Right Story in Our Marketing Message
Make the most of your customer interactions by telling the most powerful stories with the most significant amount of upside...
A young boy was permitted to put his hand into a pitcher to get hazelnuts. But he took such a large fistful that he could not draw his hand out again.
He stood, unwilling to give up a single nut and yet unable to get them all out at once. Frustrated, he began to cry.
"My boy," said his mother, "be satisfied with half the nuts you have grasped, and you will easily get your hand out.”
Settling on a core narrative is challenging for any business. This is especially true for those of us who serve the fragmented world of agriculture and agricultural technology.
Don’t Forget Who You Work For
“The greatest human failing is we forget what we set out to do.” – Nietzche.
It is easy for those of us in agtech to make a mess of our core problem statement and forget the reason we exist. Every product developed for this market has many potential applications: are we serving researchers? Producers? Advisors? All the above?
When we don’t force ourselves to focus the problem statement we are trying to solve, we begin to imitate the young boy with his hand stuck in a pitcher of hazelnuts.
The truth may be that you do serve multiple segments. In fact, in a highly integrated environment like agriculture, you will likely be stuck between two possible beneficiaries of your technology. You do not have the customer brain share or the marketing budget necessary to message both equally – you must choose.
Choosing Between Main Characters
If you’re selling technology that helps agricultural advisors make better recommendations for their growers, do you tell a grower-centric story or an advisor-centric story? The grower is the ultimate beneficiary, but the advisor is the one making the purchase.
Center your story on the group or individual who is feeling the most pain and will realize the most significant relief from leveraging your solution. Take a close look at your offering and ask who stands to gain the most from this technology?
That is the person you must put at the center of your brand narrative. In the future, you may want to layer in additional perspectives, but start with one and make it the most visceral story you have.
For example, if you are in the situation above and your technology helps advisors recommend between seed varieties and boost yields for growers – center your story on the grower.
If, however, you sell a tool built to help the advisor schedule their day or scale their own team’s efforts, then focus the story on the advisor.
You cannot list every possible use case and expect that you will gain momentum. You have finite resources - limited amounts of time, limited budgets, and limited customer interactions. Make the most of those interactions by telling the most powerful stories with the most significant amount of upside.
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.
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