Engage Your Customer - Write About Benefits     
 
Advertising,Website Promotion,Writing
  
 
Engage Your Customer – Write About Benefits By Glenn Murray *
Think quick. In 10 seconds, can you list the 5 key benefits you offer your customers?

I bet you said “Yes”. But are you sure you listed benefits? If you’ll bear with me for another 10 seconds, I’d like to test out a theory on you.

Recap your answers – maybe even write them down. Now list the 5 main things your business does. In other words, what are your 5 core services? What are the 5 core features of your product?

If your first list looks anything like your second, chances are you’re mistaking features for benefits. As a result, it’s likely that your marketing materials aren’t engaging your customer. Customers don’t want to know what you can do. They want to know what you can do FOR THEM.

Don’t talk features – talk benefits.

Don’t be alarmed. You’re not alone. Most business owners and marketing managers are so close to their product or service that they have a lot of trouble distinguishing benefits from the features of their offering. Ask a web host “what are the benefits of your service?”, and you’ll likely hear something along the lines of, “we offer load-balanced server clusters.” But that’s not a benefit… that’s what they do. The benefit is superior uptime and performance.

In fact, so many people think features instead of benefits that it can work in your favour – to dramatic effect. If you can accurately identify your benefits, and convey those benefits to your market, you’ll be light-years ahead of most of your competition. You’ll be converting leads into sales while they’re still bogged down trying to promote features.

So if you’ve ever sat down to write a sales letter and wondered how you’re going to grab your reader’s attention, or you’ve ever gone ‘round in circles writing draft after draft of web copy without ever hitting the mark, now you know where you were going wrong.

The only question remaining is, how do you do it right? Advertising copywriters and website copywriters do it all the time – and most of the time, they do it with benefits. Benefits are the copywriter’s holy grail. But if you’re not a seasoned copywriter, how do you identify the benefits you offer your customers?

There are any number of ways to identify the benefits you offer. This article discusses just three: 1) Customer Research 2) Speak to Your Sales Team 3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In

The method you choose depends on your time constraints, budget, and level of customer interaction.

1) Customer Research The most obvious way to identify benefits is to ask your existing customers. They’re spending a lot of money on your offering, so you can be sure they know what benefit they’re getting from it. (In many cases, it can be handy to ask them what benefits they’d like to be getting from you too!) Unfortunately, like everyone else, your customers are busy people. In most cases, you won’t get useful feedback by simply sending an email enquiry. You have to make it easy for them to respond, and you have to make it worth their while. Think about questionnaires and surveys for quantitative data, and interviews and focus groups for qualitative data. These are the simplest techniques, but you still have to make sure you interpret the results appropriately. And always remember that they’re self-report methods. People will sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear. (That’s also why you have to word your questions very carefully – try not to ask leading questions.) Of course, there are plenty of other research techniques around. Do a bit of homework and find the methods which best suit your business requirements. But don’t get carried away by the possibilities. All the research data in the world is pointless if you’re not talking the language of your customer.

2) Speak to Your Sales Team Sadly, not every business can afford to invest in market research. If your budget doesn’t stretch far enough, try talking to your sales people. They’re out in the field every day, talking to customers. And because their livelihood depends on their success in engaging customers, chances are they’ll be able to tell you what your customers want to know. (A word of warning, though… Be careful not to make lofty promises. Unlike your sales team, written collateral doesn’t generate a rapport with your customers. Customers won’t make as many allowances, so you can only stretch the truth so far in writing before your credibility suffers. What’s more, if you do push the boundaries, you’re more likely to be held to your word!)

3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In If you don’t have the budget for in-depth customer research, and you don’t have a sales team, a good tip is to imagine how your customer gets buy-in from their boss. Quite often, the decision maker is someone higher up the food chain than your direct audience. Your audience will probably be the key stakeholder – they’ll be the user of your product, or the recipient of your service. But when they find an offering they like, there’s a good chance they’ll have to sell it to someone further up the line. If you can make this sale easier, you’ll have a foot in the door. Don’t just appeal to the sensibilities of the direct audience. You also need to ask yourself what they need to know to convince the decision maker. If the decision maker is a CFO, think Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). If the decision maker is a CIO or MIS, think performance, technological sustainability, availability, manageability, and ease of integration. If the decision maker is a CEO, think liability, risk management, and ROI. And only use jargon to prove you know your stuff. Remember… jargon will probably have the ultimate decision maker scratching their head, not reaching for their cheque book.

There are many many more ways to identify benefits. This is just a very superficial snapshot of some techniques you might like to try. At the very least they’ll get you thinking benefits.

In the end, the message is simple. Forget all the fancy talk about complicated revolutionary marketing principles. Forget new-age hard-sell advertising quick-fixes. Forget looking to so-called “experts” for solutions. Just think benefits. And if you can accurately do that, the rest is just mechanics. Once you know what you want to write about, you just need to put pen to paper. And that’s a whole ‘nother story!

Happy writing!

.com Not Listed in Regional Yahoo? Don’t Despair!     
 
Advertising,Website Promotion,Writing
  
 
.com Not Listed in Regional Yahoo? Don’t Despair! By Glenn Murray *
If you’re a non-American business with a .com web address, and your regional Yahoo ranking is important to you, then my story might interest you.

Recently my copywriting website dropped out of Yahoo’s Australian rankings. For quite a while, it had been at number 1 for my primary keywords “advertising copywriter”, “copywriter”, and “website copywriter”. But then it suddenly disappeared. I clicked through about 10 pages of results, and it was nowhere to be seen. I then searched for my domain, and Yahoo couldn’t find it.

Something smelt fishy.

I’d done nothing ‘naughty’ to my site to warrant a ban, and I still had heaps of links to my site (actually, I had more than ever before).

I’m an Australian advertising copywriter. I’m based just north of Sydney and I host my website with a major Australian host. But my web address is a .com, not a .au. I started thinking this might be the problem.

So I emailed Yahoo support, explaining the problem, and sharing my thoughts on the cause.

And all of a sudden, nothing happened.

So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And finally, after about a couple of weeks, I received an email from a Yahoo support representative informing me – incorrectly – that my keyword wasn’t featured in my page title or description. I should remedy this shortcoming and re-submit my site to Yahoo.

Frustrated, I replied. I repeated the important facts from the first email just to ensure they’d listened. They hadn’t. They hadn’t even searched for my domain to confirm that Yahoo no longer recognised it.

When they got back to me this time, they had started paying a bit more attention. The support rep confirmed my suspicion that Yahoo had excluded my site because of its .com URL. Her very helpful solution was that I should change my domain to .au! She included some ridiculously complex instructions for how to do so, and sent me on my merry way.

As you might expect, I wasn’t satisfied. Nor was I merry. I explained to her that this was not an acceptable solution because all the links to my site on the internet are pointing to the .com and my email address uses the .com.

She was unmoved. She asserted that this was the best and only way to solve the problem. Oh… and it might help if I added my primary keyword to my title and description.

My laughter was not good humoured! I wrote back expressing my displeasure at this “solution”. I painstakingly explained how Yahoo had made a mistake, and that if Google was capable of recognising my Australian business despite its .com addresses, I would think it’s technically possible. I also cited several other .coms in the first couple of pages of Australian results.

No response.

The situation didn’t look promising…

If this sounds like a familiar story to you, don’t despair. A week or two later, I searched Yahoo Australia for my primary keyword, and surprise, surprise… My site was ranked number 1 again!

The moral to the story? Don’t be intimidated by Yahoo. Trust your instincts and don’t give up. If you’re an Australian business with a .com, and you’re not listed in Australian searches, this might be why. In fact, I would think this story is relevant to all regional Yahoos. (Of course, before making any accusations, it’s a good idea to make sure your site is properly optimised and that you have plenty of inbound links.)

Anyway, that’s my story. I hope it helps someone.

And they all lived happily ever after. So far at least…

Yahoooooooo!

The End.

Creating a Good First Impression     
 
Marketing,Business,Advertising
  
 
No doubt about it, first impressions are important – whether you’re meeting a prospective mate’s family or introducing a product. What you say, how you say it, and when you say it are all critical. After all, your product’s only new once! Of course, you’ll create a product introduction communications plan, and stick to it. You know continuity works. And you’ll set aside adequate funding for the product intro. If the product is strategically important, this is NOT a good place for pinching pennies.
Convinced about planning and budgeting? Here are three key concepts to remember when introducing a product:

1) MESSAGE You need a central promise or message for your product introduction – one that’s meaningful and memorable. What problem(s) does your product solve? How important is each problem/solution to prospective buyers? How is your product different from and better than what your competitors offer? If you stumble on answering these questions, it’s time to do some research. 2) MIX The most successful product introduction campaigns utilize a variety of communications tactics to deliver this central message – public relations, direct mail, web presence, trade shows, advertising and more. Why? The explanation relates to basic communication principles. Prospects need to be exposed to your message several times in order for it to sink in. By using a mix of communications tactics you’re more likely to reach prospects multiple times. 3) IMPACT You want to grab attention, so this is the time to “think outside the box.” What can you do that’s a step beyond the normal? Is there a trade show coming up where you can do a live presentation? Would a trade magazine be interested in doing an exclusive article? How about running a larger ad?

It’s Better to Ask than Assume.(The Power of Market Research.)     
 
Marketing,Business,Advertising
  
 
No doubt about it. Smart marketing takes finesse. Nowhere is that truism more apt than in message definition. If you want to craft a compelling message, you need to understand your prospective buyer’s motivation.
I had a boss once whose favorite saying was “Don’t assume. It makes an ass out of you and me.” Drove me nuts, but you know what? It stuck. It was meaningful, memorable (although corny,) and it was repeated. (A meaningful and memorable message is more likely to stick with the audience. Repetition imbeds a message in the brain.)

The communications lesson inherent in this saying is “know your audience.” If you want your promise (message) to be meaningful, you need to understand what’s important to prospective buyers of your product or service.

If you’ve been working in a particular industry or market segment for a while, you may think you know what’s important. And you may be right. But why not ask and confirm your thinking? You’ll get your information “straight from the horse’s mouth,” and you’ll avoid relying on potentially dangerous assumptions.

I’ve snuck the term “market research” into my sub-title. Some of you may gasp and yell, “Too expensive!” I say, “Not necessarily.” and “Guesswork can lead to expensive mistakes.”

If you’re marketing computers or fast food, your potential target audience may be huge. You’ll need Research with a capital “R.” Find a good research company – preferably one with experience in your industry. Tell them your needs and budget and let them put together a plan for you.

Those of us who work in small niches can do small “r” research. Here’s what I mean. Think of 3-5 questions that will help pinpoint prospective buyers’ hot buttons. Call your top customers and prospects and ask away. You’ll have great conversations, and you’ll learn something each time you talk to someone. Develop a matrix of everyone’s answers, and I’ll bet you learn even more.

If you get bogged down on deciding what questions to ask or making the phone calls, call in a consultant. Whatever it takes to get information. Remember: ‘Tis better to ask than assume!