Many people claim the title of Marketing Guru, but Seth Godin is one of the few who actually deserves it. In a recent TED talk, he said something that everyone who sells to consumers — whether those consumers are ordinary people or business customers — really needs to take to heart.
“Customers don’t care about you at all. They just don’t care. Part of the reason is they’ve got way more choices than they used to and way less time.”
Some years ago, there was an excellent campaign for oil filters, of all things, that featured an auto mechanic warning that you could pay him now, or you could pay him later. The message was that by spending a little more now on the superior brand of oil filter, would wouldn’t have to pay for costly engine repairs down the road.
Henry Ford put it a bit differently: “If you need a machine and don’t buy it, you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don’t have it.”
Watching this year’s national election debates, I’ve been particularly fascinated by the moderators on two fronts. First, there are the styles each has used, and second, there’s the uproar their performances trigger among the partisans on either side. (Those who know me well know I’m apolitical, so if your immediate response to that sentence is to castigate one of those moderators for treating your candidate shabbily, this blog’s comments section isn’t the place.)
They fascinate me because they serve a similar role to that of the copywriter. They have to defend the interests of the audience from those who wish to control both the message and its delivery. Regardless of their own personal beliefs about the matters at hand, to be truly effective, they have to operate with objectivity and continually ask themselves whether the ultimate audience is getting the information it wants.
Planning to share some information with a reporter or editor, or trying to interest him or her in a story? You’ll be more likely to succeed if you start by asking a very simple question.
That question would be “Is this a good time?”
I recently re-encountered one of the best descriptive quotes about marketing. Professor Theodore Levitt of Harvard once noted that people don’t care about a quarter-inch drill. “They want a quarter-inch hole.”
It’s a simple concept, but it’s one that’s lost on far too many marketers in all industries. Instead of thinking about the prospective customer’s ultimate need and desire, they focus on their product’s attributes or what they think is most important.
While tooling down the Interstate the other day, I listened to a succession of local radio stations, and almost swerved off the road when I heard one small-town announcer deliver a carefully scripted commercial for the national Quizno’s sandwich chain.
He talked about the many delicious sandwich choices available at the local Quizno’s, adding that they were all carefully prepared on Artesian bread. His reading underscored the danger of using big, fancy words in copy — words that everyone may not understand.
In the old days, before marketers began to mistake technology for knowledge and sophistication, most companies relied on a variety of tried-and-true tactics to make the most of their marketing budgets. One of the most effective tools they used was called the split test.
Essentially, what they would do is make two different offers to two identical groups. Suppose they had a mailing list with 50,000 names. They would take 1000 names from that list, divide them into two groups, and send them offers that differed in content or approach.
After my recent post about the value of direct mail, I happened upon an interesting statistic. The Direct Marketing Association released new research that said 95 percent of nonprofit organizations use direct mail.
Why is that so significant? Most nonprofits operate on razor-thin budgets. They don’t have money to waste. So they have to be very careful about how they invest what they do have. And the fact that 95 percent of them continue to use direct mail as a channel suggests that it continues to carry its own weight.
“So what’s the best trick for making copy work well?” she asked. I didn’t hesitate for a second, because the answer was obvious.
Effective copy is conversational. No matter whether you’re writing a web page, a white paper, a print ad, an email, or a letter, copy that’s conversational will invariably do a better job of connecting with the reader and convincing him (or her) to do or think whatever it is you want.
When companies decide to hold some kind of prize giveaway, whether it’s a simple drawing, some kind of contest, or an all-out sweepstakes (and yes, there are legal differences between all three), one of the first decisions is what will be given away.
Typically, the big question is whether to give a single glorious prize, or multiple smaller prizes. There’s no single answer, but a key consideration is your objective in holding the giveaway.