This afternoon I attended a bridal shower for my daughter’s beloved kindergarten teacher, thrown by the moms of the class. In addition to the requisite food and games, one mom led what I found to be a moving and meaningful activity. She had brought a clear glass vase with a “lucky bamboo” plant inside. She gave each person a smooth dark stone and passed around a silver permanent marker. We were instructed to write a single word on the stone, which would serve as a piece of advice or “word of wisdom” for her coming marriage. Each person then explained why she wrote that word, and put the stone into the vase so the word could be seen through the glass. As the roots of the bamboo plant grow and wrap around the stones, so too will her marriage be putting down its roots with those concepts as its foundation.
Some of the words people wrote included “love,” “cherish,” “communication,” “laugh,” “blessings,” “compromise” and “fun.” One person broke the rules and wrote two words — “sex” and “food” — reflecting the advice her own mom had given her when she got married, that all it takes to make a man happy is to walk into the room naked carrying a sandwich (wasn’t that a Seinfeld episode?). My word was her name, “Shannon,” with the wish that she always remember who she is and not lose her sense of identity when she gets married.
This exercise got me thinking about the idea of finding one word that summarizes my most important piece of advice for marketers (social or otherwise). After thinking for a while, I decided that my one word mantra would be “LISTEN.” Listen to your customers, your target audience, the people you are trying to reach. Ask them about their needs, their wants, what’s important to them. Find out what their lives are like, what they are thinking, feeling and doing. If you don’t listen to them, you will have a hard time designing a marketing strategy that will resonate with their lives.
Now it’s your turn to play the game with me. What would be the one word of advice you would write on a stone for a new marketer? Or what would be your one word of wisdom for success in life? Take your pick and leave it in the comments.
Photo Credit: _McConnell_
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Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
Choose. To me that word is shorthand for stepping up and making change through personal effort and reflection. I also like the last Indiana Jones film’s admonition to Choose Wisely, but that is two words… Don’t let others choose your actions, tell you what to do and then you do it just because they said so. A marketer must understand that influence, recall, intention, action, maintenance or teaching phases of behavior change all begin with choice. Choice–to listen or ignore, ponder or pass, try or give up, change then maintain, or, try try again – these should all be volitional acts, not just circumstances randomly blowing in the wind. Influencing choice, or persuasion, is a key function of a social marketer, but I think it should be to empower good choices from within those to whom one is seeking to influence, rather than dictating terms.
Nice CHOICE of words, John. Thanks for playing!