Who Wants To Hear About You?

What I am about to suggest to you is so basic I'm almost ashamed. But it's utterly essential - and too often ignored.

What's more, checking on it may do you more immediate good than all sorts of grander things like strategy and positioning.

Forgive me if you think it's beneath you - but I hope it isn't.

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Here's a question for you.

What's the most powerful word in selling communications?

Would you say "free"?

I used to - but I suspect it's not, really. I think it is "you" - and derivations, like "yours" and "your".

Here's why.

1. You are what you're interested in most of all - sad but true.

2. The more time you use "you" words in your messages, the more they get read.

3. Conversely, the more you use "we" words - like us, our and ours - the less interested people are.

Marketing is like real life. In real life don't you hate people who boast and talk about themselves? In real life don't you prefer people who talk to you about your interests? Same in selling.

So, even if this sounds a bit basic, go through your messages - in whatever medium - and do a "me/you" count.

If the "you" words don't outgun the "me" words two to one - change things.

I just looked at the welcome page of one leading marketer. In less than 150 words - there was not one "you" word". But there were seventeen selfish "we" words, starting with that old friend "About us".

"Drayton," you may ask, "How can such trivia be important?"

Well, people often compare marketing to war - and use similar words, like "strategy", "territory", "conquest", "attrition" and so on. So here's some advice for you from a famous general.

Towards the end of his life, the Duke of Wellington was asked to what he owed his victories. "Attention to detail," he replied.

Pay attention to this little detail. Count how many times your messages talk about your customers - and how much they're about you. And get the balance right.

Best,
Drayton

P.S.  This is number 11 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

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Website: www.draytonbird.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

You know that old line "By popular request" - usually followed by a lie?

Well for a change, here's a genuine example.

Many of you have asked me to carry on with these ideas and not finish on the next one - so, as I said last week, I shall.

And I'd really like your advice, Ghulam - but first, here's Jean Cocteau, who once began a speech by saying:

"I have said this many times before, but nobody listened, so I will say it again."



Well, I thought that this was a good time to mention three of the things I've covered in this series - then give you my helpful idea No 50. First, let me tell you what the three most opened ideas were.

They were:

No 2, which offered a PDF of Claude Hopkins book Scientific Advertising.

No 1, which suggested you take 5 minutes a day to think up reasons to talk to your prospects and customers.

No 17, which offered creative work at half-price to the first five people who replied.

Did you notice that two of the three featured incentives, reinforcing the truth in the old phrase "What's in it for me"? That's especially interesting as the other was the very first, which I guess people would naturally open more keenly than later ones.

But the very first one was about something I consider so important that I'm going to repeat it. And it was about the need to do things rather than sit around thinking about them.

In that piece I told a true story of two firms we did some work for. After we wrote a mailing for one, they took 6 months to do nothing except have meetings. Who knows, maybe they're still yacking away.

The other gets on with things. I've seen them get mailings out in under a week. They are the leaders in the field. The others, the slothful one, are big - but they won't stay that way.

People waffle on about the "entrepreneur" society.

They idolise people like Richard Branson - with whom I had some contact, with a few lessons I'll talk about in another piece.

But they don't act like Richard Branson.

Most people prefer talking rather than doing. And the bigger the firm, the more they talk and the less they do.

I think this is because nobody can be fired for something that never happened. That's why most businesses don't improve. It's also why most people are employees, not employers.

If you do one significant thing better each year you have a fair chance of outdoing your competitors. If you do two, you almost certainly will. If you do three, you'll wipe the floor with them.

So here is a cartoon I use sometimes in seminars just to remind you of that fact.



I use the Three Blind Mice from the nursery rhyme to emphasise what I just said.

You don't have to be a genius to beat the competition. You have to act.

I have no idea which three of the suggestions I've sent so far made the deepest impression on you. But please do me a favour. Take them and act on them.

And tomorrow...

PLEASE TAKE 3 MINUTES TO ADVISE ME

Many ideas have been suggested to me in the last ten weeks. I'd like to know which interest you. Tomorrow, I'll ask what you think.

Thank you - I have had so many thank you messages and kind comments, I've been genuinely astonished. I appreciate every one of them.