Sell! Sell! Sell!

Promoting your business is all above selling your products and services. Right? That’s certainly part of the answer. So what’s the rest of the answer?

If you’re looking for a quick, short-term fix then the focus of your promotions may simply be sales. Most businesses, though, strive to develop and maintain a solid customer base that will give their business longevity. In this instance, your promotions need to do more than simply sell.

Your promotions will need to:

• Create rapport with your customers
• Show clearly that you understand their needs
• Demonstrate that you can see the world through their eyes
• Explain how your product or service can evoke positive emotions
• Leave a lasting and positive impression of your business

 So how exactly do we accomplish this shopping list? Really, it’s very simple – and extremely challenging.

To build a relationship with your customer talk to them about the thing that really matters – them. You’ve probably heard that before and while it sounds great in theory; when you sit down to write how do you know that you’ve accomplished it?

Let’s look at a few ways:

Company name vs. you

Many businesses fall into the trap of mentioning their name as many times as possible. And why wouldn’t you? Surely you need to do that to get your customer’s attention?

Yes. Certainly mention your company’s name. However, remember that you’re talking to your customer and the focus of this conversation is them.

So the rules here are:

• Use the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ more times than you use your company name or the words ‘we’ and ‘our’.
• Start sentences with words that address your customer e.g. ‘you’ and ‘your’.
• Start sentences with your company name sparingly.

Associate with the customer

In most of our promotional material we describe ourselves in terms of how we want the customer to perceive us as professional, efficient, effective.

While it is important to promote the benefits behind these adjectives, we can also build an association with our customers by using words that describe you and your customer, either now or as they would like to see themselves.

For example:

As a personal trainer you might use the words: motivated, focussed and balanced.

If these aren’t words your clients would use to describe themselves now, they are probably words they would like to confidently use to describe themselves. This creates a desire in them. Yes, they’re thinking, that’s how I want to be.

Or consider two interior designers:

One uses the words: discerning, stylish, sophisticated.

Another uses the words; edgy, modern, dynamic

Do you think they’ll attract the same clients? Probably not. Why? Because clients who associate with the word ‘sophisticated’ probably want something more conservative than the word ‘edgy’ suggests.

You can choose words that attract your ideal client.

And my suggestions are:

• Use words that describe both you and your customer right now
• Use words that describe you as you are now and how your customer wants to be perceived

Giving vs Getting

Okay, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times. Discuss the benefits not the features. Yet many businesses struggle with the way this sounds when it’s written down. In fact, many businesses consider copy that’s written with the benefits to the customer as a focus to be unprofessional.

Why? Because it can leave them and their business name out of the equation.

Consider a standard company statement like: Talking Turkey supplies clients with professional copywriting that enhances their image, builds rapport with their customers and ultimately sells more of their products and services.

Okay, you can wake up now, it’s over. Grab a coffee and compare it to:

You’ll get professional copywriting that enhances your image, builds rapport with your customers and ultimately sells more of your products and services.

While the first may seem more professional, it is cold, unwelcoming and fails to address the customer at all. The focus is Talking Turkey and what it can supply.

The second version speaks to the customer. Even better, it tells the customer what they’re going to get. A word of caution though, ensure that what your customer is getting is something they actually want.

So your exercise here is to:

• Read through your copy. Identify sentences that tell the customer what you can give them. Rewrite the copy to describe what the customer is getting.

Your promotional material has many objectives. Yet if we truly believe the adage, “People do business with people they like”, then perhaps the most important objective is to become likeable in the eyes of your target market.

Become more likeable – write promotional material that focuses on your potential customer.

Pete and I are MAD! Let me explain how

Recently a friend shared with me a wonderful concept that has touched me and Pete. It has also galvanised us into Making A Difference. I’d like to share this idea with you.

Do you remember a child’s excitement of Christmas? Straining against closing eyelids in an effort to see Santa? Shaking, prodding and feeling the colourful packages under your tree? The lights? The decorations? Eating until you thought you’d burst?

Now imagine that you’re 12 years old and instead of being a day of celebration, gift giving and over-eating, Christmas is simply another day. You’ve never seen a Christmas tree; marvelled at Christmas lights, or even received a Christmas present. In fact, you’ve never received a present at all.

Not because of religious differences, simply because your family is poor. And not just your family, your village and in fact most of your country is poor. There is little food, your water is largely contaminated and you’ve none of the daily basics we take for granted.

Doesn’t the thought of that make you want to be MAD? Well, there’s a very easy, inexpensive way that you can Make a Difference to a child living in poverty this Christmas.

Operation Christmas Child is an incredibly simply concept.

Here’s how it’s done:

• Take an empty shoe box with a lid
• Decorate it with paint, or paper
• Choose the age range of the child who you'd like to help
• Choose a boy or a girl
• Stick the age range and boy or girl on the lid of the box
• Put something to love in the shoe box
• Add something to eat (hard lollies only – no food or chocolate)
• Include something to play with
• Give something to groom with
• Add something to write on and with
• Give them something to wear
• Put in a photograph of you and your family
• Include a letter to your child

 The simplest things, things we take for granted, can make a child’s eyes light up: a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, an exercise book and some pencils (always include a sharpener and an eraser), a small soft toy, a yoyo, a packet of Lifesavers or a Chuppa Chup.

And not only for that day; these shoe boxes are often the only gift these children receive in their lifetimes and the boxes themselves become cherished treasure chests.

If you’d like to make a difference call 1800 684 300.

Operation Christmas Child is run by Samaritan’s Purse. Yes, Samaritan’s Purse has a religious foundation, yet the essence of Operation Christmas Child is giving every child a chance to feel special and to experience the wonder of opening something that’s just for them, on Christmas Day.

Last year Samaritan’s Purse delivered over 7 million boxes worldwide – by helicopter, truck, motorbike, boat and even by camel! Australia alone gave over 200,000 filled shoe boxes. And still there weren’t enough for every child living in poverty to receive a Christmas shoe box.

Warm your own heart this coming festive season: make a difference. Call 1800 684 300 or visit the Samaritan’s Purse website.

Or if you’d simply like to contribute to someone else’s boxes, give me a call (9598 9303) or send me an email (mandy@talkingturkey.com.au) and I’ll arrange for your contribution to be included in the boxes my friend, Pete and I are putting together. Or you can make a tax deductible cash donation that goes towards the cost of delivering the boxes or choose from another worthy Samaritan’s Purse project.

In a today’s seemingly insane world wouldn’t you like to be MAD?

Saying to Soar by

You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be soon late.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Email: mandy@talkingturkey.com.au
Web: www.talkingturkey.com.au

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