ARTICLES
WHY WRITE WHEN NOBODY READS?
TELL ME WHAT I DON'T KNOW!
YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT
ARE YOU TALKING TO YOURSELF?
WHAT ARE YOUR ADS REALLY SAYING?
ARE YOU A LEADER OR A FOLLOWER?
WHY ENGLISH TEACHERS DESPISE COPYWRITERS
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(This article appeared in the November/December 2001 issue of The Business to Business Marketer, published by the Business Marketing Association)
You've got 60 seconds to pitch your company's most important prospect. Go!
"Well, as you know, your industry is increasingly competitive and margins are shrinking, leading many of your competitors to bypass the traditional distribution network for more streamlined channels. That puts you in an unfavorable pricing environment, which is causing you to lose market share at an alarming rate."
You have 30 seconds to go. But your prospect doesn't look happy. As her stomach acid makes a beeline for her esophagus, her brain cells shift to the mental notes for her resume. She heard the same thing at Monday's manager's meeting. And the week before that. And at the national sales meeting. And from fourteen magazine articles.
You just wasted half of your time telling her what she already knew, and not a word of it put her in a receptive mood.
Think you wouldn't do that? Let's take a closer look at your ads, direct mail, and collateral material. How much begins with a long recitation of the obvious and the familiar? Doesn't matter which market. Doesn't matter which industry. Too many companies simply waste the precious time that they should spend selling.
Tell me what I care about.
Let's return to your prospect. Suppose you opened with something like, "I'm about to show you how you can recapture market share through your existing distribution network." You've got her attention. And her interest. You see, you're about to solve the problem that's been interfering with her sleep. You're about to help her succeed where everyone else is failing.
Instead of belaboring the obvious, you've proven that you're a problem-solver who understands the industry and her specific needs.
Tell me what matters.
Marketing gurus have screamed about the difference between features and benefits for decades. Yet, veteran marketers who should know better still haven't learned this lesson. Don't tell me your product uses a three-handled veeblefetzer unless you can explain what it will do for me. "The three-handled veeblefetzer lets you core twice as many radishes in the same time." Now that I can see.
Tell me how it works.
Coring twice as many radishes is a bold promise - and I'll admit to being a skeptic. So tell me more about how your amazing product achieves that kind of performance. "The three-handled veeblefetzer cradles the radish, allowing the blades to operate faster with greater accuracy, and reducing waste caused by improper coring." (And please don't let your engineers write the description. Once they explain it to you, translate it into layman's terms. Otherwise, nobody but other engineers will understand it.)
Tell me that it works.
So many marketing messages take an ethereal tack, talking about partnerships and paradigms instead of facts. Maybe that's because the rush to get to market is outpacing marketers' understanding.
Most of us are too smart (or too bruised) to buy vapor. We want to be confident that your product will do what we need and last as long as we need it to. That's why so many of us carry Consumer Reports into the appliance store.
Don't give me vague promises about a new paradigm.
Tell me what your product does now. Give me solid examples of how it helped companies like mine achieve their goals. If I see hard evidence that your veeblefetzer doubled radish production for another company, I can envision what it could do for mine. We'd meet client requests in half the time. Cut labor costs in half. Maybe even handle twice as much business.
I can present all those goals to managers who understand return on investment. But send me into the boardroom with vague promises of propelling my radish production into new partnership paradigms crafted upon foundations of quality and responsiveness, and they'll never initial the purchase order.
Tell me more.
You don't need to present excruciating detail. But you'd be wise to make that detail available in brochures, white papers, or your website. After all, management may not want all the technical details - and might not buy if given that much detail - but our engineering staff won't bless the purchase without more meat. Don't tell everybody everything, but be sure to tell them where they can find it.
Tell me what to do.
Your headline and visual are irresistible. The copy reads like your best salesperson on her most effective day. You've convinced me! I'm ready to buy! All I have to do is ... er ... uh ... okay, what do I have to do? Should I call you? Visit your website?
If you don't tell me to do something, I'll do nothing. Oh sure, I'll have a warm feeling about your veeblefetzers. But that will last only until I see another great ad four pages later. Maybe your competitor's.
Tell me quickly.
A successful orator once explained his technique: "I tell them what I'm going to tell them, I tell them, then I tell them what I told them." In today's marketing communications environment, you don't have that luxury. Tell your customers what they don't know, tell them what matters, tell them what to do - and it won't be long before management tells you that you're a genius.
Article copyright 2001 Scott Flood All rights reserved
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