Thoughts on Marketing…

Small business marketers across the world are trying to get their message out to consumers – and failing miserably.

They know they have a wonderful product or service, but somehow, no matter how often they send a letter or an e-mail, and no matter how often they pay to have their message printed in a publication, the results don’t come.

If you’re finding yourself in this position, here’s one primary reason why:

You haven’t learned rule #1 about marketing.

That rule is: “It isn’t about you.”

You may think that a marketing message should be about you and your expertise or your years in business or even your beautiful new storefront. But it isn’t. It never was.

Consumers don’t care about you. They don’t care who you are or what you know. They don’t care how long you’ve been in business.

What they care about is the benefit they’ll receive from doing business with you.

Thus, your marketing has to be about them. Any reference to you has to show how it helps them. For instance, if you’re a mechanic you could say that you spend X weeks every year in class learning how to repair the newest BMW’s. If you’re a hair stylist you could talk about classes you take to stay up with the latest styles, or brag that one of your creations was featured in a style magazine.

Whatever you say – it must relate to how it benefits your prospect. If you can’t turn it into a benefit for them, then don’t bother to mention it, because it might do more than bore your reader. It might backfire.

Consider the dentist who runs an ad each week showing a photograph of his lovely family. He has 8 kids to feed, clothe, and send to college. Does that mean he’ll give you a beautiful smile? No, it means he needs to make a lot of money!

Another mistake is to confuse benefits and features. A feature is the size of the motor on a new vacuum cleaner. A benefit is how fast and efficiently it will suck up dirt and get your cleaning job finished. The deeper benefit is that you’ll feel proud of how your home looks. And the even deeper benefit is that your mother-in-law will have to approve of your housekeeping skills.

So before you begin to write, consider your offering from the eyes of the consumer. Consider what’s in it for them. Then write about that.

And… if you get stuck, get in touch. Writing copy to show consumers why they want and need my client’s goods and services is what I do.