Guest post by Michelle Salater
Your marketing copy has the power to bring you new customers and retain current ones. It connects you with your clients. Entices them to buy. Drives them to call you. Your marketing copy makes or breaks the sale.
Whether websites, landing pages, brochures, postcards, and other effective marketing materials, too many companies dilute their message by continuously talking about themselves, not their prospects and clients.
You’ve seen it many times—companies whose marketing materials are too self-centered:
• We’ve been in business for 50 years and for three generations.
• We’ve received the Chamber of Commerce Good Guy Award for 17 years in a row.
• Our salesmen were trained by the best in our industry.
• Our clients love working with us because we are a creative team.
• We blah blah . . . our blah blah . . . blah blah … us.
Let’s be clear here—nobody cares, especially your prospects.
You read that right. Your target audience doesn’t care about your business achievements or how great your services are. They just don’t. Prospects and current clients care about what you can do for him or her. They want to know what benefits they will receive from working with you.
The key is to create marketing copy that speaks directly to your target audiences’ needs and desires. Your message must show prospects how your service or product relieves their pain or solves their problem—not in terms of you, you, you, but them, them, them.
When business owners hear this advice, they’re dumbfounded. It’s a big shift in their thinking, and they’re not sure how to market themselves without the “we” word.
It’s a hard shift to make, but once you start thinking, writing, and communicating in terms of “them” instead of “we,” you’ll find marketing your company much easier. You’ll find your target audience more eager to purchase from you than before.
Often, when you’re too close to something, it’s hard to communicate clearly and concisely. Reworking your marketing copy isn’t an easy task. But if you’re up for the challenge, I urge you to take inventory of your message and see where you can take the focus off your company and place it on the prospect.
Here is an easy way to produce more client-centric copy. Read through your current marketing materials. Then, take out a sheet of paper and answer these two questions:
• Do prospects understand what your company offers?
• Do prospects understand how your company will help them fill a need and solve their problems?
If the answer is no to both of these, you know it’s time to rewrite your copy.
About Michelle Salater:
Michelle Salater is the president of Sūmèr, LLC, a company that specializes in web copy writing, SEO copywriting, and the promotion and marketing of websites after they launch. As an avid business blogger, Michelle has grown her marketing blog, Copy Doodle, to be a powerful lead generation and client education tool, and frequently guest blogs and lectures on blogging and online marketing. Also, she publishes a free, biweekly ezine packed full of free marketing tips for small business owners.
