{"id":70000,"date":"2024-11-26T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/contentmarketinginstitute.com\/?p=127507"},"modified":"2024-11-26T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T11:00:00","slug":"weve-gotten-start-with-why-wrong-in-content-heres-how-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/?p=70000","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve Gotten \u2018Start With Why\u2019 Wrong in Content. Here\u2019s How to Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At a conference last week, the CEO of a professional services firm asked me about some advice they\u2019d received from a marketing consultant.<\/p>\n

The consultant urged the company to overhaul its messaging to focus on its team\u2019s passion for what it does. According to the advice, even major client pitches should start with that message.<\/p>\n

\u201cAhhh,\u201d I said. \u201cThey want you to start your message with \u2018your why.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d the CEO nodded. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly it. So, what do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled and replied, \u201cWell, if we\u2019re starting with \u2018why,\u2019<\/em> my answer is why you should not<\/em> take that advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whose why matters more?<\/h2>\n

That consultant isn\u2019t the only one out there talking about using \u201cyour why\u201d as the anchor of your brand\u2019s story. So many articles tout the advice to \u201cknow your why\u201d that the phrase is now a marketing clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

And, yes, this one talks about it, too.<\/p>\n

But I think the advice to start with \u201cknow your why\u201d steers marketers wrong.<\/p>\n

The idea of finding the \u201cwhy\u201d behind what you do caught on almost a dozen years ago due to Simon Sinek\u2019s book Start With Why and the accompanying Ted Talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From a marketing and brand lens, Sinek\u2019s idea was simple: He claimed, \u201cPeople don\u2019t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.\u201d Therefore, he suggested, brands should start their positioning with their why.<\/p>\n

Sinek subsequently pulled back from the brand-positioning why in his follow-up work, Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team<\/a>. That book focuses on how people (not brands) can find their unique purpose to motivate their actions. I believe this is the much more useful purpose for his why framework.<\/p>\n

Still, the advice to find the brand\u2019s why before creating content became the rallying cry of many agencies and consultants in brand storytelling.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: Most people outside your brand don\u2019t care about your why.<\/p>\n

And even if they do, that\u2019s not why they purchase from you. And it\u2019s not an effective way to differentiate from your organization\u2019s competitors.<\/p>\n

The challenge of why-based brand stories<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s be honest. Most businesses don\u2019t start with (or stick with) some fantastic, world-changing why.<\/p>\n

Even some of Sinek\u2019s original examples never really took this approach. Brands conveniently reverse-engineered their why to fit a brand narrative.  <\/p>\n

For example, that famous Ted Talk opens with Apple\u2019s why as a success story: \u201cIn everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Sinek pointed out, that statement inspired Apple\u2019s successful Think Different campaign, which ran from 1997 to 2002.<\/p>\n

But by 2010, when Sinek published his book and gave his Ted Talk, Apple had long moved on from Think Different to Get A Mac.<\/a>  <\/p>\n

That campaign featured John Hodgman (personifying a PC) and Justin Long (as a Mac) talking about how the Mac platform made things like creating photobooks and listening to music easier.<\/p>\n

It certainly didn\u2019t support the idea of \u201cchallenging the status quo\u201d and \u201cthinking differently.\u201d Instead of focusing on Apple\u2019s why, the ads explain how what<\/em> the product does connects to why <\/em>potential customers would want it.<\/p>\n

Now, consider the marketing campaign<\/a> for Apple\u2019s new AI Intelligence writing feature.<\/p>\n

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This ad does what Sinek says every company\u2019s content does \u2014 it focuses on features and benefits (while showing how it helps potential customers).<\/p>\n

In fact, one might argue that it\u2019s simply a funnier copycat of Google\u2019s \u201cDear Sydney\u201d ad<\/a> fail.<\/p>\n

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Did Apple forget how to do marketing? Did the company forget its why?<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

Apple didn\u2019t discover its why and then change its business to match. It came to understand its customers\u2019<\/em> whys. <\/em>Then it clarified what<\/em><\/strong> (emphasis intended) business it was really in (making \u201clife stuff\u201d easy) and how<\/em><\/strong> to communicate it.<\/p>\n

Understanding your brand\u2019s why is important.<\/p>\n

But (not to get too meta here) knowing your customers\u2019 why<\/em> matters more for marketing and content development.<\/p>\n

Match your why to your customers\u2019 why to differentiate with content<\/h2>\n

I see situations like the one the CEO described to me all the time. Teams craft messages to convey their brand\u2019s<\/em> why without connecting it to their customers\u2019<\/em> why.<\/p>\n

Frustration sets in when the reactions to their ideas sound like this: \u201cBut do customers want any of that?\u201d <\/p>\n

The brilliance of the Think Different campaign wasn\u2019t that Apple proclaimed itself to be among the people who \u201care crazy enough to believe they can change the world<\/a>\u201d (and are the ones who do).<\/p>\n

It was that it made a creative bet that its customers would see themselves<\/em> in those iconoclastic figures. The Apple campaign didn\u2019t say, \u201cWe<\/em> think different.\u201d It said, \u201cYou<\/em> think different.\u201d    <\/p>\n

Businesses still struggle to create content that truly differentiates. But it\u2019s not because they don\u2019t understand how to discover their<\/em> why. Many books and workshops exist to help brands do that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s because they believe the brand\u2019s why should dictate what they do.<\/p>\n

Your brand\u2019s why only matters if it defines why<\/em><\/strong> you do what<\/em><\/strong> you do and how<\/em><\/strong> that connects to things customers care about. But you can\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

You must still convince customers to love what you do and how you do it.<\/p>\n

How to come up with your customers\u2019 whys<\/h2>\n

One of the techniques I use to go from \u201ctactical idea\u201d to \u201clarger purpose\u201d is a classic exercise built on the foundation of the 5 Whys exercise<\/a> from the Six Sigma problem-solving technique.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works. First, come up with content marketing ideas (in a group or by yourself). The ideas may look something like this:<\/p>\n