There are two MUST-HAVE components in every effective marketing message. Do you know what they are?

I first learned about these two components from a gentleman by the name of Don Miller. At the beginning of his workshop, Don presented a picture of a beautiful leather bag and he asked us, “how much would you pay for this leather bag?”

There were about fifteen of us in the room at the time and the consensus was that we would pay anywhere between $250 to $400 for this bag.

Then Don showed us a video. It was only about four minutes long but, by the end of the video, we were so emotionally moved that we all wanted the bag. We didn’t care what the price was!

Because now we were viewing the value of the bag from a totally different lens. We connected with the bag on an emotional level.

Don then revealed to us that the bag sells for over a THOUSAND dollars, which was, in many cases, four times higher than what we were willing to pay for it in the beginning.

Here’s the kicker… they CANNOT keep that bag in stock! It is constantly sold out! And the primary driver behind those sales is this emotional video.

It was fascinating to me because, on the surface, the product itself did not change. It’s the same leather bag. What did change was the connection I felt with the bag.

It was an incredible demonstration of how you and I, as business owners, can change the perception of our products simply through our marketing.

The video is effective because it makes perfect use of the two key ingredients that must be included in every marketing message.

Those ingredients are the INTERNAL and EXTERNAL CHALLENGES faced by your customer.

The external challenge is what your customer is likely going to type into Google when they are looking to solve a problem. It’s their literal need.

The internal challenge is what your customer is feeling on an emotional level to motivate their purchase decision.

Internal challenges include things like fear, shame, embarrassment, recognition, the desire to be loved or to belong. These could be limiting beliefs that are holding your customer back.

Internal challenges are often related to confidence; your customer wants to be likeable, they want to be a good spouse, or a good parent, or a good friend. They want their life to stand for something.

For example, an advertisement for a kitchen cleaning product speaks to a logical external need – to clean the kitchen. Yet the imagery, tone, and language of the ad might include themes such as love, happiness, and togetherness, because the desire to keep a clean kitchen can be connected to a deeper desire to provide a safe, comfortable shelter for your family.

In short, internal challenges run deep. When you appeal to these in your marketing, you open up the hearts of your audience in a much bigger way than when you appeal to external challenges alone.

Now, the real marketing magic for you and I is when we blend the two of these together.

When you go too heavy on the external, your customer might understand why they need your product on a logical level, but they feel no emotional compulsion to buy.

On the other hand, when you go too heavy on the internal, your customer might feel connected to your product on an emotional level, but feel no logical reason to buy.

I’ll give you an example from my own business.

I recently launched the TRIBE course, in which I share everything I’ve learned from years of working with membership site owners.

The external challenge faced by my customers is that they want to know the best strategies for running a membership site.

However, just beneath this lies a more powerful internal challenge – the desire to have true financial stability in their business and life, to eliminate the stress of living from sale to sale.

Membership sites generate recurring revenue, and recurring revenue creates financial stability. So it was my job to combine these external and internal challenges in my marketing when I was launching TRIBE, to show potential buyers not only what they would literally learn from the course, but how it would actually feel to implement my teachings.

This snippet from one of the TRIBE launch videos is a good example of this:

Do you see how the literal promise – to launch and grow a thriving membership site – is juxtaposed with words and images to convey the freedom that a thriving membership business would bring?

This is exactly what I want you to strive for in your marketing – a combination of appeals to external and internal challenges, the perfect mix of logic and emotion.

If you truly understand your audience and you master the combination of these elements, your marketing campaigns will be unstoppable.