Tamsen Webster explains why companies shouldn't lead with internal milestones in their marketing. Instead, frame any celebration around what matters to customers: how you help them achieve goals or solve problems. She's relaunching the show to focus on message makeovers and wants your examples.
You want to know something nobody cares about? Your organization's milestone or anniversary. It's the hard truth, I know, but that's what we're talking about this week on what just happens to be the 100th episode of Find the Red Thread. I'm your host, Tamsen Webster of TamsenWebster.com. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I get how it happens. Somebody, somewhere in the organization starts to notice that the organization or someone in the organization or something about the organization is about to cross a number. A number that ends in a 5 or a 0. Now, I have no idea why 5s and 0s have such deep power over us, particularly if we're in marketing and communications, but they do. And these 5s and 0s seem to set off this deep reflection and internal celebration and frankly, a lot of hand-wringing about how we can use that milestone in the marketplace. Now, I can't stand it when this question comes up and it's come up just about every organization I've worked with or for because, you know, 0s and 5s happen every 5 years, so it's kind of easy to find one. The challenge is, of course, that when we take a milestone and try to use it as the foundation of a message, we're confusing at heart what's meaningful to us internally with what's meaningful to people externally. See, the milestone is important. I'm not taking that away from you. It's incredible that you have been in business that long, that you have had someone serve that long, that you've served that many people, that you've recorded that many episodes. That's Great. And yes, it's increasingly rare that that kind of perseverance exists in the marketplace. Incredibly important for you. But let's remember that messages carry meaning. And it's not just your meaning that matters. It's the meaning to the marketplace. It's the meaning to your customers, your clients, all of those people whom you're meaning to serve. And what's most meaningful to them is not your milestone. What's most meaningful to them are the things that help them, and more specifically, the things that help them achieve a goal. Now, that goal might be to achieve something that they haven't achieved so far. It could be to solve an unsolved problem. It could be to answer an unanswered question. It could be to meet an unmet need. But when you look at your milestone through that lens, it suddenly becomes pretty darn clear that your milestone isn't all that meaningful to them. So, what does that mean for your milestone and these messages that you want to put in the market? Well, frankly, I wish you just wouldn't put them out in the market, but I get that that's not always possible. So, in the case where you really do want to celebrate and take this internal pride externally to the marketplace, figure out how that recognition of that milestone actually affects the people that you're talking to. If it doesn't, it really does not belong in the marketplace. But if it does, then even then, I want you to lead with the meaning for the market. Lead with how it helps them solve a problem, meet an unmet need, achieve an unmet goal, answer an unanswered question. Lead with that. Then you can add on later, "Hey, by the way, this happened to be caused by the fact that we were realizing we're achieving this particular milestone." so they understand some of the reasoning behind it, but at least what they've heard first is something that's useful to them. Your milestone is absolutely important, and it does carry meaning, but the meaning that matters is the meaning that matters to the market, and that's not always your milestone. So that's this week's episode of Find the Red Thread, and yes, it is the 100th anniversary of it. Aha! But I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to change this direction of what we're doing with Find the Red Thread from here on out. After my own reflection on 100 episodes, I realized that where I can have most meaning for you is to show you when messages work and when they don't, to really show you what it looks like to give a message a makeover. So, as you're listening to this, as you're thinking about this for your own business and your own organization, send me examples of messages that need that makeover or need that tune-up. I'm going to be relaunching fairly soon with that new direction, and if you want to catch up on what this direction has been for through the first 100 episodes, please do that. You can always see that on YouTube, and please do subscribe and like. Otherwise, see you with the message makeovers next time.
