Its not necessarily what you say but how you say it…

As we can’t be sure who is going to pick up and read our marketing material we need to make sure that we maximise our exposure to potential clients. How do we do this? Well the first thing we do is move away from the assumption that just because you and I speak the same language, we will both attach the same meaning to the words that we use. It’s not necessarily the case.  

Language is a comparatively unreliable resource and we can quickly see the weakness of this assumption if we start trying to find universally agreed meanings for words like ‘nice, beautiful, clever, justice etc.

Has anyone ever received an email from someone that you thought, hey that’s a bit off, a bit sharp, too direct etc only to find later that’s not how the message was originally intended. It could be that the person who wrote it was in a rush and wanted to clear their desk before the weekend and in doing so missed off a few pleasantries. They didn’t realise that you would take it in the way that you did.   

It’s also worth remembering that we all process information differently, some of us are more visual and prefer to see a picture of the product being sold while others do better when they hear sounds so that we can have an associated feeling with the product.  Don’t ever fall into the trap of assuming everyone is like you when you write your marketing material because you’ll be potentially missing out on clients purely because you didn’t get your message across in a way that they would have preferred

As human beings we experience the world through 5 senses:

Visual in terms of pictures and images
Kinaesthetic in terms of feelings
Auditory (sounds)
Gustatory (taste)
Olfactory (smell)

When we talk to our potential clients try and bring in as many of the senses as you deem appropriate. The same goes for your written marketing material.

Think of the car salesman that wants to sell you that nice red sports car. You may have heard words like.

‘Can you see yourself getting into this car first thing in the morning driving to work. Just think, you’ll be able to have the roof down even on a crisp winter day because it comes with heated seats so your back is all nice and warm, perfect if you suffer from the odd twinge. Also, it’s almost a pleasure stopping at traffic lights because when you pull away you get to hear the roar of the engine…..its a fantastic sound
To do effective marketing, your communication has to be good and if at first you don’t succeed keep at it. Find out what it is that works and more importantly what doesn’t.  

There’s a great quote from Charles Darwin ‘Its not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change’.