I hope you’re enjoying this series about the five marketing mistakes everyone makes (and how to avoid them). By way of a recap, so far we’ve talked about how to determine who, specifically, you’re talking to, how to determine what action you want them to take next, and how to go about asking them to do it. If you’ve come this far, then you definitely don’t want to fall victim to…
Mistake #4 – You Don’t Give Them a Compelling Reason To DO IT NOW!
Sometimes, just asking your prospect to take some specific action isn’t enough; you have to give them a reason to take the next step, and to take it immediately. Why the hurry?
If your prospect doesn’t take the desired action right away, what do you think are the odds he or she will remember to do it later, especially when no longer under the spell of your alluring marketing piece? I’ll tell you: the odds are non-existent. If your prospect doesn’t take the action you want her to NOW, you’ve likely lost your only shot. That said, how do you get them to do something immediately?
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So here we are at the middle of this series on deadly marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. So far, we’ve covered the need to know who you’re talking to and knowing – specifically – what you them to do. That means it’s time for…
Mistake #3 – You Don’t Ask Them To Do It
OK, I know. This one is, or at least it should be, a no-brainer. After all, if you’ve taken the time to identify the ideal prospect you want to address and you’ve decided the action you want them to take to engage with you, doesn’t it only make sense that you’d ask them to do it? Of course it does! Then again, just because something makes sense doesn’t mean it gets done (like American Idol not getting Elton John to replace Simon…talk about a no-brainer!).
In fact, I’d venture to guess that this is one of the items that’s most often forgotten in a marketing campaign. In the rush to create the perfectly crafted message, we sometimes forget that the message will be forgotten within minutes if the prospect doesn’t also take some kind of immediate action. It doesn’t have to be anything huge; just a small action that demonstrates to you, the marketer, that they might have an interest in spending some more time talking with you.
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Wow! Has it been a week already? It seems like only yesterday when I wrote that I was going to post the second part of this series. A week? Are you sure? Well…sorry about that. What with the new blog and things totally exploding (in a good way) at GLB HQ, I’m not surprised I missed seven days. So again, sorry. Let’s get down to it…
Mistake #2: You Don’t Know What You Want Them To Do
In the last post, we talked about the importance of knowing who you’re talking to, in other words, knowing who your ideal clients are. Once you’ve identified who those folks are, though, you have to immediately get down to the business of deciding what you want them to do.
Easy, right? You want them to buy! Well, as strange as it might sound, I don’t think that’s really the case. The odds of someone actually buying off your marketing piece (or on a prospecting call) are pretty small; on the other hand, the likelihood of them taking some other low-risk action can be pretty significant if the request is framed properly. More on that later.
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Last week, Karl Palachuk and I did an episode of his Cloud Services Roundtable Podcast. We talked about the 5 mistakes that kill most marketing campaigns, and how they can be avoided. The podcast went really well, so I thought I’d share what we talked about and see what you all had to add. This will be a five-parter, so stay tuned for more.
Mistake #1: You Don’t Know Who You’re Talking To
Of all the mistakes you could make when starting a new marketing campaign, this is the biggest. Having a clear idea of who you’re talking to is critical to the success of your campaign; after all, if you don’t know who you’re talking to, how will you know what to say?
Think about it: do you use the same words, tone, and inflection when you’re trying to communicate with a 22-year-old girl as you do when addressing a 55-year-old man? Of course not. How about when talking to a devoutly religious person versus a skeptical agnostic, even if they both happen to be the same age, sex and race? Again, the answer is no. Instead, you tailor your message for the individual you’re speaking to. Why would your marketing messages be any different?
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“If you want to speak with the voice of your soul, you have to quiet the voices in your head.” – Me
I was talking to some friends after the Sacramento Speakers Network meeting tonight (the greatest networking group ever!), and I heard the phrase above come out of my mouth. I was stunned. It was a big “A-ha!” moment for me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to succinctly describe what a Blog Whisperer does, and suddenly there it was: what I’ve learned to do, and what I’m enjoying helping other people to do, is to quiet the voices in their heads; when they learn to do that, they can start to find and speak with their true voices.
I know from my own experience how debilitating those voices can be. Have a look at some of the early posts on this blog; they sound like they were written by a robot, and, in some respects, they were. The stuff I wrote was aimed at…no one in particular. I was writing to appeal to as wide an audience as I could manage, and no one cared.
And yet, I was convinced it was the correct way to write. Don’t offend, don’t alienate, don’t polarize…those were my mantras. When I finally started to quiet my mind, though, I started to hear a different voice. The new voice was vaguely familiar, but it had been a long time since I’d heard it.
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