What can I write that will help you the most in your business.
I offer critiques of brochures, advert, letters and web sites.
Is that important to your business?
If your business is built on referrals you probably know vaguely that you maybe ought to do things better. But it's not going to make immediate profits, will cost you money and... "hey we already have all the customers we can handle".
I offer business growth coaching covering super people recruitment, better sales presentations, more effective organisation, superior IT project management.
Is that important to your business?
If you're making profits you don't need any of these do you?
Be warned.
Thinking that way is the slippery slope to the bankruptcy courts.
That's not you?
Think about the rail barons in the USA in the last century. Fabulously wealthy. Are they still around?
Not really. They just didn't adapt to changing circumstances and business.
Don't let that be you and your company.
Depending on one or two ways of getting business, in the same way everyone in your industry does constrains you.
How?
Everyone using the same methods to get business will attract a certain percentage each. Companies using a method have a better chance of attracting customers from their competitors.
If you think brochures don't sell, think again.
If you think direct response sales letters suck - Reader's Digest can prove you wrong.
If you think it doesn't matter about the words on our web site. You wont even know how many customers you're losing.
Ring me on UK 0161 278 1919 and set-up a review of any piece of your marketing arsenal.
Be warned though my consulting fees are £10 a minute on an ad-hoc basis and I only work with open-minded and committed business owners who are willing to try new ways of getting more business.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
When You Write To Your Customer Do Words Matter?
Think about this...
When you write you know what you want to say.
The person you're writing to has to guess at your meaning.
The reason?
We've all got communication filters.
Our life experiences mean that the same words can mean different things to different people.
So when someone reads your letter they're interpreting it. That's the reason people can explode with rage over something a writer thought was a throw away line. Maybe even slightly funny.
If you're producing copy to send to more than one person this becomes an even bigger headache.
How can you stop people from ripping up your lovingly crafted direct mail letter or email?
You need to build a picture for yourself of the person who represents your target market.
Is that easy? It all depends on how close you are to your customers.
The picture you build isn't simply about what your client would buy from you. It's much more than that.
You want to know whether they've male, female, over 50, under 25, liberal, conformist, married, divorced, separated, widowed, with children, without children and so on and on...
All these aspects change the way people view their world.
Writing to people who have less than one thousand pounds in the bank about buying 10 thousand pounds of stock market investments would be a waste of time.
Writing to 80 year olds about reduced prices for extreme sports trips would be equally a waste of time.
I make the slightly silly examples so you see my point.
By building a character profile of Mr or Mrs Typical you get to ask them questions about how they would respond to your direct mail piece.
In fact interestingly enough I wrote a piece in my other blog where I assumed I knew exactly who my target market was. I wrote them another email on Friday because I'd assumed that because the offer had changed to give three FREE CDs from the monthly programme they'd dive in simply to get such valuable information.
It suddenly hit me yesterday that I just didn't do the exercise where I work out the typical profile of the market!
Why didn't I work out a typical customer?
Great question ...
The answer is that I thought I was doing everyone I knew a favour by letting them know about a CD programme I use myself.
Wrong.
Why would I think anyone was like me? They're not.
I should have drawn up a profile.
As it happens the people who are the market for this CD programme are actually split into two:
one who are in jobs and want to advance their careers and the other are in their own companies and want to improve their business profits.
As I hadn't worked that out I'd based my email letter on my own views of the importance of training and marketing. Views I know few other people share.
I should have stressed the benefits to each typical market. Instead what I did was simply explain the features of the programme because I was so sure people would benefit that they'd "obviously" understand for themselves.
Well of course they didn't!
So if and when I send another email encouraging people to sign up for this programme I'll make sure I address a detailed profile for the career person and the business owner. From that I'll get concrete benefits the target market will appreciate and want.
Technorati : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Del.icio.us : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Ice Rocket : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Buzznet : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
43 Things : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
When you write you know what you want to say.
The person you're writing to has to guess at your meaning.
The reason?
We've all got communication filters.
Our life experiences mean that the same words can mean different things to different people.
So when someone reads your letter they're interpreting it. That's the reason people can explode with rage over something a writer thought was a throw away line. Maybe even slightly funny.
If you're producing copy to send to more than one person this becomes an even bigger headache.
How can you stop people from ripping up your lovingly crafted direct mail letter or email?
You need to build a picture for yourself of the person who represents your target market.
Is that easy? It all depends on how close you are to your customers.
The picture you build isn't simply about what your client would buy from you. It's much more than that.
You want to know whether they've male, female, over 50, under 25, liberal, conformist, married, divorced, separated, widowed, with children, without children and so on and on...
All these aspects change the way people view their world.
Writing to people who have less than one thousand pounds in the bank about buying 10 thousand pounds of stock market investments would be a waste of time.
Writing to 80 year olds about reduced prices for extreme sports trips would be equally a waste of time.
I make the slightly silly examples so you see my point.
By building a character profile of Mr or Mrs Typical you get to ask them questions about how they would respond to your direct mail piece.
In fact interestingly enough I wrote a piece in my other blog where I assumed I knew exactly who my target market was. I wrote them another email on Friday because I'd assumed that because the offer had changed to give three FREE CDs from the monthly programme they'd dive in simply to get such valuable information.
It suddenly hit me yesterday that I just didn't do the exercise where I work out the typical profile of the market!
Why didn't I work out a typical customer?
Great question ...
The answer is that I thought I was doing everyone I knew a favour by letting them know about a CD programme I use myself.
Wrong.
Why would I think anyone was like me? They're not.
I should have drawn up a profile.
As it happens the people who are the market for this CD programme are actually split into two:
one who are in jobs and want to advance their careers and the other are in their own companies and want to improve their business profits.
As I hadn't worked that out I'd based my email letter on my own views of the importance of training and marketing. Views I know few other people share.
I should have stressed the benefits to each typical market. Instead what I did was simply explain the features of the programme because I was so sure people would benefit that they'd "obviously" understand for themselves.
Well of course they didn't!
So if and when I send another email encouraging people to sign up for this programme I'll make sure I address a detailed profile for the career person and the business owner. From that I'll get concrete benefits the target market will appreciate and want.
Technorati : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Del.icio.us : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Ice Rocket : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Buzznet : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
43 Things : Achiever's Edge, Peter Thomson, Top Achiever
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)