Kelford Labs Daily: Make the story go there now
Put your important stuff first.
“If you know where a story is going, don't hoard it. Make the story go there, now. But then what? What will you do next? You've surrendered your big reveal. Exactly.”
— George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Put your most important point right at the beginning of your marketing.
You’ve heard about “burying the lede”: Holding back the main point of the story in fear of giving away too much, too quickly.
And it’s a mistake in marketing just like it is in other writing.
Have you ever written a LinkedIn post and found yourself holding back your major point or conclusion for the very last line?
When putting together your newsletter, have you ever left your call-to-action to the last sentence?
Or when you’re writing your ad copy, do you hide your unique differentiators in the small print or the features bullets, instead of putting it right there in the headline?
Like Saunders says, “Often, in our doubt that we have a real story to tell, we hold something back, fearing that we don't have anything else.”
But that’s the whole secret: By revealing our major point, our best point, the only point that really matters, right up front, we create momentum and interest.
Most people’s interest peaks at the beginning, and drops off from there.
So don’t hold back your best points, your call-to-action, your key differentiators to the end.
Start with them.
