Your Marketing Message - It Ain't About You!

Your marketing message is one leg of a three-legged stool that also includes the right market and media, and it’s the fundamental building block to building a successful marketing system.  It’s also the secret sauce that quite literally could make or break your business.  Domino’s Pizza built a multi-million dollar empire on the strength of their marketing message – it was just 7 words long. What’s your marketing message?

In my work as a copywriter and coach, I critique hundreds of ads and sales letters every year.  One of the most common mistakes I find is that… most businesses focus the message on themselves.

Having a marketing message that’s all about you - your accomplishments and your success comes off as hollow bragging.  It doesn’t create a compelling marketing message to make your prospects want to leap out of their La-Z-Boy and go flying to the phone to call you. It doesn’t build rapport. And it doesn’t answer that age-old marketing acid test: what’s in it for me?  Newsflash: to get your marketing noticed by the right people and connect with your prospects, you have to make your marketing all about them, not you.

Now don’t worry.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about your success and accomplishments.

It’s all in the way you do it. Good copywriting repositions your experience and success in a way that servestheprospect and makes them feel so connected to you that it’s like you’re reading their mind.  That couldn’t be more opposite to the way most people market their businesses – which is usually about pushing a message out to the market that’s all about them.

Also, never give prospects or customers a reason to say, “So what?” Sentences like “I’ve been in business for 20 years,” or “We care about our customers,” can lead to the “So what?” response.  You have to link the dots and tell your customers why that’s important to them.

I recently got a card from a Gold Stampede Member who, after purchasing my Ultimate Marketing Homestudy Toolkit, changed his marketing message from the “we’ve got” to the “you get” approach. He also rephrased all of those harsh sounding sales words in his sales letter (he now uses “agreement” instead of “contract,” and “invest” instead of “buy.” These words can be found on my list of 23 Most Persuasive Word Subs). He told me his leads increased and his closing ratio jumped from 35 percent to 56 percent with those changes.

By taking a client centered approach to your marketing, you’ll also stand out from your competition, who most likely don’t do much else in their marketing other than talk about themselves. Don’t believe me? Dust off a copy of the Yellow Pages and see for yourself (doctors, attorneys, nutritionists, real estate agents, plumbers, life coaches… you name it – ME based marketing is everywhere!)