To be effective your marketing pieces must be able to persuade prospects to take the action you want them to take. Whether it is to sign up for a report or a class or buy your product or service or find out more from your news release, your marketing piece has to effectively persuade them to take an action.
There are 3 key foundations that will improve your copy a hundredfold. They seem very simple, however, from reading many marketing pieces – web and offline – it’s clear they are easily missed by many marketers and business people alike.
There are 3 main fundamentals of persuasion. One way to summarize them is by asking:
Who, What and Why. A simpler way to remember them however is by asking the questions:
- What is it?
- Who is it for
- So What?
Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Judging by the amount of copy I read that fails to address one or more of these questions, it’s a lot less simple than one might think.
So let’s look at the first persuasion fundamental – What is your product or service?
1. What is it?
If you’ve ever tried to write product descriptions, especially in a limited number of words you’ll know it’s not easy. Which is why so many product and service descriptions are confusing, leave out essential details, use long, supposedly impressive words and/or jargon. All this does is to confuse the reader more. It does little to help them understand your product.
So, in order to be effective your copy must describe your product clearly – so that the reader has no doubt as to what it is.
This can be tricky – especially with services, or a new product.
Before we look at what to do, let’s look at some of the more common mistakes.
1. Making assumptions
As a business person or marketer you may be very close to your product. You may know it inside out and back to front. Unfortunately this often leads to copy that assumes the prospect also knows as much about your service as you do – or than they themselves really do. It could be a small detail, like saying whether something is free or paid, during the day or the evening. You have to describe the “What is it?” of your product with all the key details – do not assume that your target audience knows them already and leave them out. If you do this you may find prospects leave your website or ignore your mailing because you’ve not made what it is clear enough for them.
Next – the risks of trying impress.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hello from Barcelona,
I happily came across your page and have read some of the very crisp writing and thinking…thanks for that. The idea that you touch about Making Assumptions is hugely important, and something I try to tackle every day. It is very easy and natural to do…in my work as a Strategist and blog writer on strategic thinking, I must constantly ask people how they feel and react to my ideas and I am always surprised at the difference in individual’s answers. Big spotlights shine down on the assumptions I have made. Through the surprise though, I usually maintain a silly crooked smile, because I know the information will help me become more effective in my communication. Always a learning curve!!