Garry Marshall, director of the movie Pretty Woman, is one of my favorite keynoters from the Maui Writers Conference.
He told our audience, “Hollywood directors can predict when their movies will make money based on one thing: Do people walk out of the theater repeating something they heard… word for word?”
If they can, they become brand ambassadors who take that movie viral.
If someone asks, “Seen any good movies lately,” and they repeat a catchy tagline like “Make my day,” “I’ll be back,” “Show me the money,” from a movie they just saw, they become a word-of-mouth advertiser for it – all because it had a phrase-that-pays that stuck in their mind.
So, here’s my question… When people walk out of your meeting (or watch your video, or read your blog, website, or marketing material), can they repeat anything they heard… word-for-word?
If so, good for you! If not, use these 5-quick tips (excerpted from my book Got Your Attention?) for crafting a memorable phrase-that-pays to ensure YOUR MESSAGE is the one people repeat and retweet.
Distill: Condense your premise or promise into eight words or less
Rhythm: Put it in a beat to make it easy to repeat
Alliteration: Use words that start with the same sound
Rhyme: Use rhyme to be remembered over time
Pause & Punch: POP! your phrase-that-pays with distinctive inflection
ACTION
Do you have a high-stakes communication coming up? Are you writing a blog, building a new website, or launching a new program or product?
Have you crafted a phrase-that-pays that people can repeat – and actually want to retweet- after hearing it once?
If not, get more tips to becoming easy to remember and hard to forget here.