Movies and marketing that do something — Kelford Labs Daily

The common advice in screenwriting for movies is that every line must either advance the action or develop character.

And, ideally, every line will do both.

A great screenplay is one where the characters are being expressed and explored by the actions they take, or how they respond to the actions around them. Rather than the audience being informed of their opinions, motivations, or desires through long, expositional, dialogue dumps.

(Nothing grinds a movie to a halt faster than two characters telling each other what they should both already know so that the audience can be brought up to speed).

I like little rules like this, little reminders of how we want to structure our writing so that it can work.

And a similar little rule I like for marketing is: Everything we do or say must either demonstrate value or deliver it.

And, ideally, both.

Because the point of our marketing is not simply for us have done it, but for it to have done something.

The way to do that is by showing our prospects how we work through our marketing. By demonstrating how and why our process is the way it is, and the tradeoffs we’ve made to make it work for our best customers.

(Nothing grinds marketing to a halt faster than a bunch of expositional, explanatory copy that says what the business is but not what it does.)

Every screenwriter should re-read each line in their script and ask: Does this advance the action or develop the character? Or this line just here because something had to be?

And every marketer and entrepreneur should re-read their marketing copy, their website’s opening text, their latest LinkedIn post and ask: Does this demonstrate how I work or deliver a bit of value to my audience? Or does it only exist because I had to say something?

So let’s do this today:

Pull up your latest bit of marketing, whatever it might be, and go through it line-by-line and ask yourself if it’s showing off your process or showing your prospects how to do something useful.

And spend a few moments thinking of ways it can better demonstrate or deliver value.

That way, we can make sure our marketing is more than done, it actually does something.

Reply to this email to tell me what you think, or ask any questions!

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