Sales and marketing messages, getting yours across

5 seconds to make an impact and grab your prospect’s attention. You have to tell your prospects you have an excellent product or service and are willing to sell it and how they should buy it. Fortunately there is an acronym to remind you of the essential elements:

Attention - get the customer’s
Interest- stimulate the customer’s
Desire – create the desire to buy
Action- tell the reader the action to take

All promotional messages you develop for most communication methods, whether it is networking, a brochure, sales letter, advertising or press release will be based on this format.

• A headline or statement to attract attention
• Some copy to explain the detail
• A call to action
• Possibly an illustration, photograph testimonial or case study.

Before you decide on your message and the method you will use you need to

• Decide on your objectives
• Ensure you know your target audience
• Decide how to present the customer benefits
• Identify what methods of communicating and what materials are most appropriate for your target audience and your messages
• Develop a plan with timings and costs
• Develop the material
• Determine what criteria will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your communication.

For a free review of your current marketing activities and suggestions on how they could be quickly and simply improved please give us a call on 01226 290288 or email Gareth@gapmanagement.co.uk.  My suggestions are free and yours to keep. Usually cost nothing to implement.

How to create a headline:

A good headline should grab attention and be aimed at only your target market.

Always aim to write a selection of different headline that present your product or service in the most interesting and attention grabbing way. Focus on the benefits you are offering not the features of the product. Select the best three headlines. Test your headlines over a period of time and identify which one generates the most response. Make this the benchmark against which you test new headlines until you find one that does better, and then this becomes the control.

Make sure your headline tells customers what you have for them. Headlines do not have to be creative to be effective. For example, “Affordable piano lessons”   “Dogs for sale” Headlines can explain the problem, “Is a lack of finance ruining your business?” Headlines can explain the solution, “ Low cost Car insurance” Headlines can announce the product, “Marketing services for small businesses” Headlines can name the prospects, “Young Mothers.”

Generally using your business name as a headline is not a good idea yet many small businesses do. If the headline on your advert is the name of your company you can almost certainly improve the response by changing the headline.

Write down headlines that get your attention:

Create a snatch file of headlines that grab your attention from newspapers, magazines sales letters etc. Use these to give you ideas or concepts and then change them to fit your products and services and your target market.

To get you started take a look at these and se if you can adapt them for your business.

“7 secrets to a marketing plan that works.”
“ Save more than money.”
“ Take the hassle out of your tax return for only £99.
“The secret to putting more money in the bank”
“ Find out why.”
“ How your business can generate extra revenue.”
“ How to generate sales leads from your web site.”

The Copy

This should follow on logically from the headline. Make your copy personal as if you are talking to just one person. Tell them what you are going to do for them, and how they can obtain your product or service. Your copy should use facts to back up any claims and if possible include customer comments and testimonials. The product benefits must be explained. Remember a benefit is only a benefit if it means something to the customer. Have a call to action so that the customer knows what to do next.

All your customers want to know can be summed up with, why should?

• I choose you?
• I look at your website?
• I read your brochure?
• I agree to meet you?
• I spend this money?

Usually the more you can tell your prospect about the benefits of your service and your company the better and the fewer questions you will have left unanswered.

Please try to make it interesting and not full of technical jargon and terminology!

When you answer these questions you help your prospects to make the decision to contact you.

Testimonials and case studies that focus on the benefits to the reader are a powerful way to help prospects reduce the risk of using your product or services. Make sure that case studies are written from the reader’s perspective. Testimonials should include contact details. By the way to obtain powerful testimonials write them yourself and ask your client to amend and approve.

For help in writing sales letters, brochures, leaflets and your web site please contact us.

Pitfalls to avoid

Concentrating on you and your firm and not the customer.
Not explaining the benefit of using your product or service.
Using jargon or technical terms.
Using your business name as the headline.
Using an impersonal tone of voice, use friendly language to connect with the reader.
Too much use of “I” or “we” not enough “you.”
Not answering the “so what?” “ What is in it for me.”
Not including a call to action.

Testing

Testing is vital. Try to get an opinion from customers or prospects. Ask a business associate for a frank opinion or view. Then act on their comments.

Some activity such as mail shots can start off small before embarking on larger campaign,

Monitoring and measuring

Knowing what is working is vital to planning where to spend your marketing money in the future. Ask customers where and how they heard of you. But it is not just enquiries you should also monitor the quality of the enquiries and the number you convert into sales.

For a free review of your current marketing activities and suggestions on how they could be quickly and simply improved please give us a call on 01226 290288 or email Gareth@gapmanagement.co.uk.  My suggestions are free and yours to keep. Usually cost nothing to implement.

About GAP Management

GAP Management helps business owners and managers to focus their marketing efforts to be more effective and to find win and keep customers, to grow their businesses and be successful whether they market in person, in print or on the web.

For personal help with marketing and sales to grow your business contact us.