Sell bridges, not secrets

Online advertising is full of people with a secret.

A secret formula to transform your sales. A secret hack to reduce belly fat. A secret step-by-step process to double your revenue.

The upside is that it’s results-oriented, which moves creators away from a focus on features.

The downside is that the product is so obscured, you’re unable to determine who is selling what anymore.

It’s gone from feature-focused, to benefit-focused, to baited fishhooks.

So what’s the right way to present your product?

I’d like to make a case for movement-focused:

• Features focus on the product.
• Benefits focus on the destination.
• Fishhooks focus on sales.
• Movement focuses on the journey of those we want to help.

You see, everyone is stuck between two worlds: the one they live in (problem-land), and the one their mind is reaching for (solution-land). When we show people that we understand these worlds, we can build a bridge between them, no bait required.

If the bridge goes from one place to the other, who cares if it’s the only route (the ‘secret’) or one of many routes?

The winner isn’t he/she who creates the most obscure secret.

The winner is he/she who clearly expresses someone’s world back to them and builds the clearest bridge.