How To Know If Your Marketing Communication Will Work Before You Send It

 

Because the future is where we’re all going to live and because having a handle on what’s  likely to happen is so valuable, it behooves all of us in business to do what we can to minimize the unknown and to maximize the results we want. This is possible with the marketing communications you use... cover letters, brochures, ads, flyers, e-mail, you name it.

 

When you include certain elements you increase the likelihood that you’ll get a qualified prospect or make the sale. When these elements are missing, you’re cutting the probability of a profitable outcome.

 

Before you finalize any marketing communication and start sending it out, run your rough draft copy past these crucial points and do what’s necessary to include them, to improve your effectiveness and response.

 

Clear Market Focus

 

The more precise you can be in marketing, the better. Even though you may be sending your brochure to a million people, the essential marketing equation always remains the same - it’s always between you and just one other person. Each person must feel, as she looks at what you’ve provided, that it’s for her alone. She doesn’t care that millions of others may be looking at the same thing... all she wants to know, and has the right to feel, is that you’ve done all this for her!

 

Because of this essential me-and-you dialogue that’s the bedrock of all successful marketing, you need to be crystal-clear about who you’re talking to in the marketing communication you send.

 

In writing this kind of copy it helps to visualize the person who will be reading it. If it helps you, give this person a name and be clear about his identity. As you sit down at your computer to compose, keep your single prospect in mind and direct everything to him or her. When you do, you’ll find it easier to write effective copy.

 

The Offer

 

What’s going to help you with that presentation is the offer. We live in a world where the kinds of people you’re trying to attract have too much of everything. They are thus sluggish to respond. The objective of business, any business, is to motivate immediate response.

 

Offers provide the prospect something for acting now that he won’t get if he waits. It’s because you don’t want and cannot afford for the prospect to wait that you provide the offer.

 

The keys to an offer are real value and limited availability. You’ve got to make sure to present the offer in such a way that the prospect says, “Wow, that’s real good. I want that.” And you’ve also got to say, “Friend, if you don’t act by next Thursday, you’re going to miss the offer.” In other words, you must motivate with both gain and fear of loss. Together they put the punch in the offer.

 

Where does this benefit go? On the outside of your envelope… or at the top of your marketing communication, like the right-hand corner. In other words, you always LEAD WITH THE OFFER! The offer is the motivator and you weigh in with that first.

 

Benefits On Benefits

 

Most marketing communications talk about how great the sender is, how world-famous the product, how hot the service, how fabulous his credentials. This is, of course, just self-serving puffery and if you don’t think your prospect knows it, think again.

 

Take yourself out of the discussion... transform the focus onto what the prospect gets… not who you are and how wonderful you and yours. This is very difficult to do. People are  “I-centered.” Our entire view of the world is from our own perspective. Knowledge that there are others with other perspectives comes later, if at all. It is, therefore, very difficult to go from a “me-centered” worldview to a “you-centered” worldview. But it’s absolutely crucial for business success.

 

This essential “you-centered” approach starts with the very words you use. Take a look at your draft. How long does it take you to actually introduce the “you” who is the prospect? It ought to be in the first line or two. Let the person know right away you’re talking to him or her... that everything that follows is for them.

 

Then bring in the crucial benefits. Benefits are like punches. You want to drive them home, yes right into the face of the prospect.

 

• Here’s the first, most important thing you get, POW!

 

• Here’s the second most important thing you get, POW!

 

• Here’s the third most important thing you get, POW!

 

Benefits should always:

 

• Be specific.

 

• Focus on the recipient.

 

• Make it clear to the recipient how much better off he’ll be when he has the product or service producing the benefits than he’ll be without it.

 

Don’t say, “Hey, buy my book,” which is the elementary mistake too many marketers make. Say instead, “Use this 248-page resource to find how to save up to 50% on all your classified and space advertising costs. Yes, when you use this, you’ll save money now, be more profitable sooner, and still get the ads you need to market your business.” The first line is about a sale... the second is about the transforming benefits the prospect gets. Which do you think interests him more?

 

Profit-making copy is always about movement, about making it clear to the prospect that when he acquires and uses what you’re selling, he’ll be moving from Point A, where he’s relatively disadvantaged, to Point B where he’ll have a string of benefits, benefits you’ve presented in priority order, from most motivating to less motivating.

 

The contest is not to use the fewest benefits to motivate; the contest is to ensure that each benefit you present is so motivating that, sooner or later, the prospect goes, “I’ve got to have this,” and takes the necessary action to acquire what you’re marketing.