Try To Find A Real Life Comparison With What You're Doing

Recently I went through a selection of the websites run by the firms readers of this series work for.

The overwhelming majority focus on the company, not the customer.

They almost all base their approach on that deadening phrase "About us" and the content of most welcome pages is inward-looking and boastful "We are the leading, etc" stuff.

Now, I realise this may not even be your area, that it makes the people who run it feel good, and it's often suggested by website designers who know less than the square root of ****-all about marketing ...

... And I realise people want to be reassured that they're dealing with a good firm - but only after they've been sold on the benefits you offer.

Just think how most people come across your website. Nowadays it's the first place they go after you've attracted their interest - when they're wondering whether they want to go any further.

Here's a good way to look at it.

When you go to a site, it's as though you've just walked into a store. You look for a helpful sales person.

How would you react if you said, "I'm looking for a widget" and got this reply:

"We're wonderful. We're the best store in Oxford Street. Would you like to read our mission statement? The board loves it. Would you like to meet our management team? Like to read their biographies? See their pictures? How about the chairman's report?"

Crazy, really?

Well, I'm sorry, but that's what many of you are doing. If your firm has money to burn, please send it to me and I'll turn it into profit for you.

But to be serious, this leads me to today's Helpful Idea, which is:

Try to find a real life comparison with what you're doing.

Don't look at marketing as divorced from the real world - which is all too easy to do if you spend a lot of time sitting in meetings talking about strategy.

Try to imagine an analogy with real life, just as I did a few moments ago.

To make this clearer, here's another two examples.

Suppose people do you a favour in real life. What do you do? You say "thank you".

That's why thank-you letters - which I mentioned in a previous note to you - make such sense.

Or suppose you throw a party in real life. What would you like to know? You'd like to know if people enjoyed it. That's why questionnaires after events make sense.

Like so many other things in life, marketing is simple - if you allow it to be.

Best,
Drayton

P.S.  This is number 49 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

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