Mountain of Engagement

Use the Mountain Strategy to Keep Your Audience Engaged!

When I’m talking to groups about how to communicate publicly about their project, their business, their organization, etc., we look at the dizzying array of options and we need to make choices about what to actually do - and what not to. Because you want to be strategic, make the most of your limited time, money and resources, and get the maximum return on your communication efforts.

But there’s no one-and-done way to do this - and if anyone tells you there is, they’re lying.

Your decisions will rely on a bunch of factors, including how invested the audience already is - emotionally or materially. The more invested they are, the more willing they’ll be to go down the rabbit hole with you, and the more you can ask of them without scaring them off.

In Influence: Science and Practice, psychology professor Robert Cialdini identified seven principles of influence. One of those is Commitment and Consistency - people want to stand by their commitments and appear consistent in their behaviour. This means that, for example, if they make a small commitment once, they can be convinced to make additional, related commitments after that.

So you need to get them to say “yes” the first time - yes to pay attention to you, yes to take some small action - and then you can deepen that relationship over time, potentially scaling it up as you go. I like to imagine this journey as a mountain - the Mountain of Engagement.

So imagine you’re going for a walk one day, and suddenly you look up and there’s a beautiful mountain in front of you. And yes, I know that in real life mountains don’t just sprout randomly out of flat ground…but for the sake of this analogy, let’s just go with it. You might say “Whoa…nice mountain!”

This is what I call the Discovery phase of the communications journey. Your audience didn’t know that you existed;  now they do. Maybe they met you at an event or saw one of your ads or heard you being interviewed on the radio. Now, some people might just shrug and go about their business. Mountains aren’t everybody’s jam, and that’s okay. But some will be interested enough to start looking around. They’ll stop and read the interpretive signs at the base of the mountain, see what it’s all about.

This is the Exploration stage of communication. Your audience is looking at what you have to offer and seeing if there’s something of value for them. It’s still a fairly passive process at this stage - they’re looking at your website, listening to what you have to say, maybe checking out your social media. You might not get a lot of signs that they’re paying attention - apart from, say, your website analytics, newsletter signups, and other data which show how many people are looking and listening. You don’t see a financial return at this stage, but it’s a crucial step.

If someone likes what they see, they might find a footpath and start walking up the mountain. And they’ll keep going as long as the views are nice and there aren’t too many hazards on the path. This is the Interaction stage: people are now putting effort into engaging actively with you, but not really giving anything back yet. Maybe they’re trying to set up a meeting, asking for a quote, coming to your free event.

At this stage of the process, you are acting as the audience’s guide. Your job is to make the journey as pleasant, interesting, and easy as possible for them, so that they want to keep going. You’re showing them how you can make their life better and removing any barriers that stop them from engaging fully. You’re trying to create a positive experience and get them excited about what’s waiting for them, so that they don’t turn around and go back down the mountain.

If you do that job well, a certain portion of your audience will keep going - even as the terrain becomes steeper, they’ll stick with you because they believe in the rewards that they’re going to get. Have you ever climbed a mountain where they’ve put a restaurant near the top? You’ve just done a lot of climbing; you’re hungry, you’re thirsty, and you’re ready to shell out for a good meal with a terrific view. So smart. So good.

This is the Supporting phase of your audience’s journey. This is when people start investing their time, their money, their energy, their reputations in you. They buy your products, they recommend you to their friends. Again, you’re trying to make their experience at this stage as good as possible. If you do, they’re more likely to reward you by spending more time here.

Finally, a small minority of people will make it all the way up to the summit. It’s cold up there, and the trek can be tough, so most people will stick around at the Supporting level drinking their margaritas.

But those hardy souls who believe in you enough, will ascend to the Leadership stage. They’ll spread the word about you to everyone you know. They’ll nominate you for awards. They’ll angel invest. And they do that because of the work you’ve put in at all the earlier stages, not knowing whether you would ever get them here or not. Now, at any given time you’ll probably have people at all of the stages of this journey. Some who are discovering you for the first time, some who have been ride-or-die with you since the beginning, and a whole bunch who are everywhere in between.

That means you need to take a multi-layered approach to your outreach and communications. You need to have messaging that will appeal to different levels, and you need to roll out those different messages at the right times and in the right places. Quick, benefits-focused messaging and easy calls to action for those who are near the bottom of the mountain; more detailed information and ambitious calls to action for those who are higher up and already willing to go the distance with you.

What that looks like in practice - again, that depends! It’s about creating your 1-of-a-kind strategy where you focus on who YOU need to reach in order to meet your goals, and make sure you’re supporting that audience at every step of their journey.

If you want to talk to me about how you can make it happen, Get in touch or set up an appointment and find out how Stage Light Communications can help! And let us know in the comments which topics you’d like to learn about next.

Happy trails, Superstar, and have a fabulous day!