Take a quick look at the following 2 statements. Which of them do you find the most appealing?
- I wrote this blog post, now I want you to read it.
- Business owners often struggle with this challenge, so I wrote this quick tip to help you.
Unsurprisingly, your marketplace is massively more attracted to the second statement. Despite this, the majority of small and medium sized businesses use the first approach in their marketing.
Rather than focusing on the wants and needs of their marketplace, they focus on what they themselves want. And it’s costing them a fortune in missed sales opportunities or client enquiries.
I received one such email earlier today. It started off with; “We’re delighted to announce our summer 2019 range is in stock and available to order”.
Let’s unpack that headline and see what message it sends to the reader.
- The vendor is excited.
- The vendor has an announcement.
- The vendor has new stock.
- They want me to order it.
As you can see, they’ve given me (I’m an existing customer) very little motivation to do anything. Their message is all about them and what they want. By switching the focus to their customers, they could have built a more compelling message. Instead, they’ll be wondering why that email’s response rate is so low.
The lesson here
The lesson is pretty obvious when you see an example broken down, like the one above. But sometimes in our eagerness to market our products or services, we can unintentionally make similar mistakes.
This is why I recommend you deliberately check, to ensure the focus of your future marketing is always about “them”. Also, review your existing marketing and shift the emphasis of any self-focused material, so that it’s them-focused… their wants and needs.
Show them how passionate you are about helping them. Show them you care.
And make solving their problems the cornerstone of your marketing.