How would you make Americans care about African girls?

What if YOU were charged with ending poverty in Africa?

Tough job, right?  The task seems daunting, overwhelming, and frankly impossible.  Many Americans take the stance that Africa’s plight is just “not our problem.”  Even if we did care, what could we do?  We’re a continent away…and besides we have our own problems, our own bills to pay.  If YOU were in charge, how would you go about changing that belief?

Watch  The Girl Effect . 

The Girl Effect is trying to eradicate poverty in Africa, one girl at a time.

(Go visit The Girl Effect website now before reading the rest of this post – I swear it wraps into a marketing message!)

Take note of how The Girl Effect is going about accomplishing their mission.  They used video.  Told a story.  They made the message personal.  Made it simple.  Made it easy to digest.  Touched people’s emotions.  Asked their audience to take just a small step.  Even the opening page of their website makes you make a decision, invites to you get involved.

Now go back and start thinking about your own business.  I work with clients every day who are selling incredibly complex products and services.  They’re faced with the same challenges in getting people’s attention. They’re faced with the same challenges of  boiling complex concepts down in to simple messages. 

So many don’t. 

And when complex solution providers fail to make their messages personal, simple, emotional and compelling, their products and services don’t sell — at least not as fast as they would like, driving up the cost of sale. 

Use the The Girl Effect website / video as a reminder to make your marketing messages personal.  Make them simple.  Easy to digest.  Touch people’s emotions.  Tell a story.  That’ll put you on the right track.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, see if you can get Oprah, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie to endorse you.