3 Ways To Cut Through The Advertising Clutter
Statisticians agree that a typical person is exposed to about 3000-5000 sales messages PER day. That’s A LOT of “noise” competing for your target market’s attention…
The question is how do you deliver highly compelling, attention grabbing and profit generating communications that rise above the clutter?
While there are many ways to make your message memorable and effective, today I want to share the 3 often-overlooked ways that should improve your advertising results and ramp up your sales…
Go over your sales copy, web copy, emails and see if you can answer the following questions:
1) What Is Your Big Promise? I need to be blunt with you… some products don’t have it – yours may be one of them. If that’s the case, you may have to update or repackage and sometimes even dump your product and find a new one. But, you must offer a Big Promise for people to even consider reading past your headline…
When people land on your website, open your email or start reading your sales letter they want to know instantly what you can do for them. That’s where you need to make a big promise of what they will get from reading your letter. Of course, you should never promise anything you/your product can’t deliver, as that could hurt your credibility.
Your big promise could be that you help people save time, save money, make more money, lose weight, gain weight, gain more confidence, or achieve an important goal with less time, effort or for a smaller cost/investment.
Understanding what your big promise is gives your message clarity and focus. It helps you arm your sales pitch with the right examples, illustrations, proof mechanisms, pictures, etc.
2) What Is Your Big Benefit? A benefit is what your customer gets when you keep your promise. Saying: “My product will help you lose weight,” is a promise. Obviously, you need to provide adequate proof that you can deliver on that promise. But, to motivate people to action you need to engage their emotions…
So, say your product can help people lose weight, you need to explain what ‘losing weight’ will mean to them. You could say that… they’ll be more attractive to the opposite sex… they will have more confidence… they won’t feel embarrassed stripping down to their bathers at the beach anymore… they will feel good wearing their jeans again… etc.
A benefit is not a benefit unless it helps your prospect get what she wants or what’s important to her or removes what worries, frustrates and stresses her out.
And, finally…
3) Who Is Your Target Audience? This is critical. Who is your reader? Do you even know? Someone who wants to lose weight to be attractive to the opposite sex has a different mindset to someone who wants to lose weight to stay healthy. Sometimes people want both but you should address the benefit your prospect wants the most.
People have different values, motivations and priorities in life. They do different things for different reasons. The moment you understand what will motivate your target audience to action your sales communications should become more effective.
You can’t engage a prospect when you don’t know WHO she is… the moment you do, your job becomes easier, your second challenge is to attract and keep her attention with a compelling promise of a strong benefit she wants more than anything else right now.
That way you should be able to set yourself apart from the “noise” that’s currently overwhelming consumers, while increasing your chances of making more sales.
Copywriting, Marketing, Mindset, Persuasion Architecture, Words That Sell