Yes, I know business has been bad for most people for the past two years or more. I know you may be taking this apparent beginning of an economic recovery as your window of opportunity to get out and market your business. Here is the question: Did I throw away or delete your expensive marketing piece?
Do you badly need business? Are you trying to start a business and badly need funding? Is your desperation coming through in your aggressive marketing efforts? If it is, your marketing dollars and time are being wasted.
I'd like to encourage you, and all entrepreneurs, to pay attention to the #1 rule of marketing success: Educate first - then sell. It is powerful and will bring you business.
We all have been conditioned to ignore the hard sell. Every day we are attacked by clever lines and flashing pictures demanding that we buy, buy, buy! We automatically tune this out just like we tune out the noise of the garbage collector.
Of the following pitches, which would you follow up on?
[1] Interest rates are at record lows! Buy your dream home now! Got credit problems? Got unverifiable income? We can get you a mortgage!
or ..........
[2] Mortgages 101 - FREE - A complete guide to home buying and mortgages including how to overcome credit problems and unverifiable income. Presented as a Public Service by XYZ Mortgage Company.
Let’s take a look at what each of the above statements tells us.
The first statement automatically assumes the reader is too out of touch to realize that interest rates are at record lows, and must be told with an exclamation mark. Not only that, but it uses a fact that nearly everyone these days knows and tries to make it a selling point. Then it goes on to try to make the reader think the impossible is now somehow within reach. Well, it may be in reach because of certain abilities of this particular company to make loans to just about anyone who wants one, but the aftertaste of this pitch leaves one wondering just how this company is going to gouge them on price or cheat them in some other way. Why? Because this marketing pitch tries too hard.
The second statement offers something for free. Although free is a magic word, it is becoming less so as people learn that free usually costs them time or aggravation because the companies that are offering something for free are just trying to trick people into replying to their ad – and then, the hard-sell attack begins. In this case, though, the word free is backed up by the words presented as a Public Service. Further, the company actually identifies itself and makes no attempt to push a hard-sell in the ad so, apparently, this company is doing good business already. They do not appear to be hungry. They might not attack people who respond to the ad.