Mum’s the words
// May 22nd, 2008 // Social Media, Startup, strategy, Writing
I’ve written before about the importance of developing great elevator pitches and business narratives, and about how often the best ones come from your customers, not your marketing team.
In the last week I was privileged to observe a group of passionate, involved customers do exactly this for Clay Cook, entrepreneur, angel investor and founder of Minti.com, an online support and advice community for new mums.
Clay had no budget to get some copy written in a hurry for a direct email shot out to a church email list. I heard about this when he Twittered, asking if anyone could help. I got in touch but I couldn’t really help.
It didn’t matter because in the meantime, Clay had a better idea: he already had an abundance of engaged, communicative, passionate Minti customers who would share a lot in common with the women on this group email list. Why not run a competition to see who could write the best email for Minti?
Clay gave them a short brief, his own attempt at the email, a deadline of only three days, and a prize for the winner of M$20,000 (about $USD40, which can be used on Minti.)
Some of the entries were very good, and the winning entry nailed it, showing Clay and Minti exactly what it is that makes Minti special to its customers (rather than its investors, partners, press and employees.) Here’s my favourite excerpt:
Minti (www.minti.com) is the most amazing site for parents I have ever come across. It breaks down the walls of social isolation that many parents face. The members are real people with real problems, and real solutions. Whether you are a parent of your first newborn baby, your teenage grandchildren are becoming difficult to understand, or you are planning a child and want to get a better idea what you can expect, Minti has the answers… or we will quickly find them for you!
It’s wonderful; right on voice and credible because it’s written by a real person, not a copywriter or a marketer. No buzzwords, jargon or feature lists to trip the mind’s marketing alarms and alienate the reader.
Congratulations Clay, fantastic job!
What’s the lesson for the rest of us? Simple: all you need to distil a great elevator pitch is a small group of passionate customers, a place for them to cooperate, compete and egg each other on, a good brief and a meaningful reward.
Of course, if you don’t have an online community of passionate, engaged, communicative customers, you’re out of luck, in which case, you might consider engaging me to help. I can help you identify and bring together passionate customers online and offline. If you don’t have passionate customers yet, I can derive some of what’s needed from you, your staff, the marketplace, and my experience writing great pitches for other startup businesses.
