When we put together the YourMembership.com video, the goal was to say it quickly and succinctly — the old idea of an elevator pitch. Who are we?; what do we do?; and how can we help?; in three minutes or less. Easy concepts….but finding the right words and graphical representation wasn’t.
We’re proud of our software and its capabilities and the idea of boiling it all down into a one minute synopsis of what we do felt very limiting. When we let the ideas flow, we ended up trying to convey every feature and nuance of our product, not the possibilities and not the solutions it provided. But after a lot of brainstorming and editing we found something that explained the essence of what we do and what we can do for you. Take a look.
Have you done the same for your organization? Have you rehearsed your “elevator speech”? Can you tell a stranger what it is that you do in less than 60 seconds? When you think in terms of what you do, you focus on features (be it features of your campus, organization or mission) but when you expand that conversation into what solution you provide, it’s easier to narrow down. Telling a story has become an increasingly popular method of marketing. Incarnate Word Academy created a really fun look into their daily life in a YouTube video but you can also accomplish that in a blog or in one-on-one conversation.
Perfecting today’s elevator pitch is not about what you do or how you do it but convincing your audience about why they should care.
