Let your personality show

Just for a minute, pretend that you are getting ready for your a blind date. If your friend is to be believed, then the person you’re meeting is a perfect fit for you. Smart, attractive, funny, stable, healthy, and ready for a commitment. You’re excited and of course, you want to make the best impression.

Invariably you find yourself rethinking your wardrobe and trying to decide whether to go with your best colors, or decide which combination of shirt and pants will portray you as both fun yet dependable. You stand in front of the mirror and work to make yourself presentable. You style your hair, maybe put on a bit of cologne, shave … everything you can think of to make that good first impression.

But you know that looks aren’t everything so you rehearse your date. You stand in front of the mirror and practice your laugh, your ‘interested’ look, your serious face … heck, you probably even brainstorm topics of conversation and respond to imagined questions with very thoughtful and sincere answers. You try to think up ideas that will present you as both an eloquent and informed person, but also an effective and attentive listener. After all, this person you’re meeting could be ‘the one’ and you want to make sure that you’re presenting yourself in the best possible way.

In many ways, advertising is just like going on a date. As a company, your marketing is trying to woo a customer; it’s trying to attract people and get them to feel like your service is exactly what they need to solve their problem or make them happy. The best way to do this is to use your marketing to help potential customers get a taste of what it’d be like to do business with you. Your marketing should generate the same reaction to the viewer as they would experience when they walk through your doors for the first time.

You need to let your personality show.

In a previous blog titled ‘It’s not me, it’s you‘ I discussed the importance of designing your marketing campaign from the viewpoint of the customer. After all, it’s not enough that your marketing says what you want it to say. That won’t resonate with the customer. Your marketing needs to say what the client wants to hear. If you can address their needs and make them feel good about choosing you to satisfy their desires, your marketing stands a far greater chance of success.

But your marketing also needs to reflect the essence and the experience of doing business with you. It needs to sell the customer not only on the informational level, but also on the aesthetic level. Your advertising should represent exactly what it feels like to do business with you.

If you are a family restaurant, then your advertising should convey a fun, comforting kid-friendly environment. If your marketing reflects a classy, upscale or romantic feel, there’s a disconnect between who you are and who you’re representing yourself to be.

If you’re a lawyer your advertising needs to command a level of responsibility and trust. But if it looks as if it were created on a typewriter and has a picture of you in a wrinkled shirt that looks as if it was taken off a cell phone, it won’t matter if you are the best attorney in the state, people are going to see that you didn’t put the effort into your advertising and infer that you’re likely not the person who will give 100% toward their case.

If you are a car dealer, you’re not just selling cars and the feeling of freedom to your customers but you are also battling the stigma that car salesmen are dishonest and/or that the cars they sell aren’t always reliable. Your advertising should reflect reliability and honesty. However, if your marketing is distracting or confusing and is replete with disclaimers, confusing jargon or features images of vehicles that look well past their prime, it won’t matterthat you are honest and all your cars are reliable — your advertising is feeding into the stereotypical car dealer cliché.

The old saying that ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’ is very important when it comes to advertising. You cannot consider any marketing effort to be an afterthought, or something that is just ‘thrown together’ at the last minute. If your ad or flier or commercial or brochure doesn’t truly represent and convey the experience of doing business with you,  you are sending an imprecise and conflicting message to your customers.

Your marketing should be a faithful extension of your business identity. Advertising is a very deliberate and thoughtful process designed to attract, communicate and persuade complete strangers that you have a solution to their needs. Reading or viewing your advertising piece should convey the same feelings and instill the same confidence as if you personally were sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with your client. In many ways, advertising is just like getting ready for that first date. You want to like them, and you want them to like you so it’s critically important that you put your best foot forward.

Whether it is you or your agency who designs your marketing, make sure that everything is developed in such a way as to allow the personality — not just the offerings — of you business show. Customers need to feel what its like to do business with you and your marketing is their first contact point with you. If you can’t be everywhere at once (and who can?), then your marketing is inevitably going to be that initial point of contact and it needs to precisely convey exactly what the potential customer will experience once they pick up that phone or walk through that door.

Can you say that your marketing does that for you? Maybe you need to take it out on a date … just to be sure.

Steve Jobs: Lessons from a Marketing Genius

Foreword: A friend sent me this article this morning and, whether you love Apple products or hate ‘em (I fall into the latter category), the marketing principles and ideas in this column are sound, effective and serve as a good starting point for anyone who does marketing for a living. Enjoy.

The CEO of Apple employs powerful marketing ideas that any company can use to tell its brand story.

APPLE CEO STEVE JOBS is considered one of the greatest marketers in corporate history. For more than three decades, he has delivered legendary keynote presentations, raised product launches to an art form and successfully communicated the benefits of Apple products to millions of customers. No matter what type of business you’re in, Steve Jobs has something to teach you about telling your brand story.

1. Plan in analog. Steve Jobs may have made a name for himself in the digital world, but he prepares presentations in the old world of pen and paper. He brainstorms, sketches and draws on whiteboards. Before a new iPhone, iPod or MacBook is introduced, the Apple team decides on the exact messages (i.e., benefits) to communicate. Those messages are consistent across all marketing platforms: presentations, websites, advertisements, press releases and even the banners that are unfurled after Jobs’ keynotes.

2. Create Twitter-friendly headlines. Can you describe your product or service in 140 characters? Steve Jobs offers a headline, or description, for every product. Each headline can easily fit in a Twitter post. For example, when he introduced the MacBook Air in January 2008, he said that it is simply, “The world’s thinnest notebook.” You could visit the Apple website for more information, but if that’s all you knew, it would tell you a lot. If your product description cannot fit in a Twitter post, keep refining.

3. Introduce the antagonist. In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs’ presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM or “Big Blue.” Before he introduced the famous 1984 ad to a group of Apple salespeople, he created a dramatic story around it. “IBM wants it all,” he said. Apple would be the only company to stand in its way. It was very dramatic and the crowd went nuts. Branding expert Martin Lindstrom has said that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero — you, your ideas and your product.

4. Stick to the rule of three. The human brain can only absorb three or four “chunks” of information at any one time. Neuroscientists are finding that if you give your listeners too many pieces of information to retain, they won’t remember a thing. It’s uncanny, but every Steve Jobs’ presentation is divided into three parts. On September 9, 2009, when Jobs returned to the world stage after a medical leave of absence, he told the audience that he had three things to discuss: iPhone, iTunes and iPods. Jobs even has fun with the rule of three. In January 2007, he told the audience he had “three revolutionary” products to introduce — an iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. After repeating the list several times he said, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. They are one device and we are calling it iPhone!”

5. Strive for simplicity. Apple chief design architect Jonathan Ive said Apple’s products are easy to use because of the elimination of clutter. The same philosophy applies to Apple’s marketing and sales material. For example, there are 40 words on the average PowerPoint slide. It’s difficult to find 10 words in one dozen Apple slides. Most of Jobs’ slides are visuals — photographs or images. When there are words, they are astonishingly sparse. In January 2008, Jobs was delivering his Macworld keynote and began the presentation by thanking his customers for making 2007 a successful year for Apple. The slide behind Jobs simply read “Thank you.” Steve Jobs tells the Apple story. The slides complement the story.

6. Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment. People will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There’s always one moment in a Steve Jobs’ presentation that is the watercooler moment, the one part of the presentation that everyone will be talking about. These show stoppers are completely scripted ahead of time. When Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, what do people remember? They recall that he removed the computer from an interoffice envelope. It’s the one moment from Macworld 2008 that everyone who watched it — and those who read about — seem to recall. The image of a computer sliding out of an envelope was immediately unveiled in Apple ads and on the Apple website. The watercooler moment had run according to plan.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Great leaders cultivate a sense of mission among their employees and customers. Steve Jobs’ mission is to change the world, to put a “dent in the universe.” According to Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” True evangelists are driven by a messianic zeal to create new experiences. When he launched the iPod in 2001, Jobs said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.” Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs sees it as tool to enrich people’s lives. It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.

Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, is a presentation, media-training and communication-skills coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and a popular keynote speaker and seminar leader. Gallo lives in the San Francisco Bay area and is a former vice president for a global, top-ten public relations firm. For more information, visit www.carminegallo.com.

The true cost of an identity crisis

What is the most valuable asset to your business? Is it your employees? Is it your product? Is it your building? Your location?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Too much negativity to start a column? Sorry about that. The most powerful and valuable asset to any business is …

…. its brand.

So what is a brand? Most often, people look at a brand as one thing:  the logo. Most often, when clients approach me about designing their logo they just say “give me a logo that works like the Nike logo … or the McDonald’s logo … or the Coca-Cola logo. Give me a logo that provides my business with instant notoriety; something that will sell my product, market my company and cure cancer — all before breakfast.”

The problem to that line of thinking is that a logo is just a picture. There is no single image, that when introduced, will be instantly effective in communicating every product, service or message a business wishes to introduce to the public. Many people see the Nike, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola logos and are instantly reminded of their products, services and messages and, to put it bluntly, they see the logo as the vessel of the message and not the product of a consistent marketing and branding effort.

Truth is the Nike swoosh was nothing more than just an image when the first shoe introduced to the public back in 1971 (ironically it was just a design element on a shoe — the original company – Blue Ribbon Sports – it wasn’t until 1978 that the company changed its name to Nike). It took 7 years of branding and marketing efforts to tie the swoosh with the name Nike (founderbios.com). So even one of the most recognizable logos in the entire world took seven years to reach a point of prominence where it Nike was recognized by a mass audience.

There is more to a brand than just a logo. A brand is the product you sell and the quality of its performance; it is the service provided by the people who sell to or service the customers; it is the innovation and intellectual property that spurs the ideas the company introduces; and it’s the philosophy and approach to business. In time, a logo — like Nike, McDonalds and Coca-Cola — can come to embody all these elements, but it is not an overnight solution. A solid brand identity is the result of a quality product consistently reinforced by a thoughtful message, quality product and marketing effort over a an extended period.

Let’s briefly look at how to build a brand, and let’s start with the obvious…

THE LOGO

In my time, I have seen some beautifully created logos; true works of art. Elegant, eye-catching and creative. And I’ve seen the businesses with these logos fail quickly. I’ve also seen the most hideous, drunk-sketch-on-a-greasy-napkin logo become an iconic symbol of a successful company (Two Men and a Truck). A successful, effective logo is timeless meaning that it does not changed year-to-year, but rather is consistently reinforced and pushed into the public arena.

Every time a company introduces a new logo, it effectively destroys or at the very least, degrades any headway the previous logo had on the public consciousness. I’ve seen too many companies believe that simply changing their logo will boost their fortunes, and I’ve seen too many ad agencies advocate a logo change for no other reason than they don’t like the design.  If  a business does decide to change its logo it needs to be part of a bigger strategy; one that designed to reintroduce the new look and reinforce the existing messaging so that the new look becomes intertwined with the existing marketing message.

I could spend time going into great detail on what makes for effective logo creation, but this article is about branding so to keep us on topic, so instead I’ll refer to my personal blog entry about logo creation. It is decidedly written to help graphic designers develop effective and versatile logos, but still provides valuable ideas and information any business owner evaluate his existing logo design or the ideas provided by the designer or agency.  You can read it by clicking here.

CONSISTENCY

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make — particularly small businesses — is that they do not promote themselves in a consistent manner. Any marketing message, and advertising product (brochures, business cards, print ads, television, web sites, blogs, flyers, posters, packaging, etc…) must follow a consistent design standard.  Too often, people get caught up in looking at a brochure as being a standalone project than their business card or their print ad; each one with a different set of criteria and as a result the visual representation or messaging across an entire campaign differs from one project to another. This diminishes your brand effectiveness.

It’s important that design and messaging standards are established at the corporate level and enforce the consistent application of those guidelines to every product, every employee, every storefront and every product.  A few of these include:

• Colors – Pick specific Pantone colors or set specific color builds (your agency or printer can help with this).
• Logo size and application – Dictate the where, the size and how and your logo to be used in all applications (ask your agency or graphic designer to develop a written set of logo standards).
• Tagline – Pick a specific tagline and stick to it, do not change across multiple projects.
• Fonts – Choose specific fonts to be used in all your marketing, advertising and packaging — I recommend having a single Serif and Sans Serif font choice and the option for a Script font; once set, do not deviate.
• Images – Identify and select what time of images can and cannot be used in your marketing. If you have an artistic, hand-drawn style, do not mix in photography; if you cater to high-end clients, use quality photography, not clip-art.

Ideally, a consistent brand results in the continual reinforcement of your identity across your entire product line and marketing efforts, with each project providing support and feeding identical messaging to every other subsequent process. This is how to build brand awareness and consistently reinforce your product or service.

MESSAGING

Maintaining a consistent message is very important to building a strong brand. The easiest application of this concept is through a tagline (a short, 3-7 word phrase which sums up your service, the founding ideals of the company, or the benefit to the customer.

A recent discussion on the Marketing Design Group on LinkedIn asked for contributions as to the most overused and cliché ideas. It’s a pretty entertaining list to be sure and a good litmus test to ensure that your company isn’t recycling an overused concept employed by other businesses — or worse, your competition. Read it here (Note: You may have to create/log-in to LinkedIn to view the discussion).

It is important that a company distances itself from its competition through a unique and relevant marketing proposition. If the message is similar to that of another business, or if a company changes its message project by project, the end result is that mixed or conflicting messages exist in the public arena. That company can no longer be identified by a unified idea or thought, but will more likely be seen as a business with no sense of self-identity – and it’s hard to trust a company who is unsure of who it is, or what value it brings to the table.

EMPLOYEES

Have you ever considered that your employees are probably one of the biggest contributors to your brand’s value, or the biggest contributor to your brand’s decline? It’s absolutely true.

Your employees are often the front line defense in protecting your brand (and a big element to brand value is your reputation). If your employees are involved and take a personal investment in providing the highest-level of service and exemplify the ideals of your company, your brand and reputation is strengthened; if they provide inferior service or reflect upon your company in a negative light, your brand is diminished.

Your employees get more face time with customers than does ownership. It’s critically important that their approach to your business and delivering your message is consistently reinforced.

BRAND IS EVERYTHING

The one thing that will always follow a company is the value of its brand. It’s the most important asset a company has and contributes more over a length of time than any other factor.

Employees may leave and can always be replaced. A building doesn’t speak to the value of a company and a location can always change.  Computers and furniture can be easily replaced when damaged or broken.

Damage to a brand can take years to recover from, or may prove to be a fatal blow to a company’s success. Your brand is the heart of your company and is a vital living, breathing component which feeds all future success. Take care of it. Develop it. Nurture it and take whatever steps are necessary to protect it.

What are your thoughts on brand value? Leave a comment and contribute to the discussion.

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The perils of perspective.

Okay, big philosophical question time…

Does any business really need a marketing company to help them advertise?

I’ve tossed this question around in my own brain for close to a decade now. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, a “YES” answer is truly in my own best interests as far as continuing my career.  But there’s also a strong case to be made for a business having marketing professionals at their disposal.

• Yes, a company should hire a marketing company.
• Yes, a marketing company can be critical to helping businesses reach new customers.
• Yes, a marketing company can help businesses craft effective marketing methods.
• Yes, a marketing company can take care of all the details – the printing, the production, the media buys, the negotiation, the public relations, the creative, etc. – so you can spend time focusing on running your business.
• Yes, a marketing company can serve as guide toward maximizing your resources and getting you the best bang for your buck.
• Yes, a marketing company has advanced research tools at their disposal to help identify emerging industry trends, consumer purchasing habits, customer demographics – all of which you can use to tailor and refine your business to meet the needs of the market.

Yes, but…

In my 15 years in this business, I’ve seen a lot of savvy, intelligent business owners who are just as capable of developing their own marketing. I’ve seen people with a knack for self-promotion and creative thinking. I’ve seen non-marketing people come up with brilliant and clever ways of pushing their message into the public arena. I’ve had to learn that sometimes the role of the marketing company is not to necessarily come up with the idea, but to help the people with the idea bring the concept into reality.

I’ve also seen even more savvy, intelligent business owners who have absolutely no idea of how to market their product or service. Yes, they know their widgets inside and out and if you get them going on a topic related to their business and they’ll talk for hours upon hours with limitless enthusiasm. But when it comes to marketing, they have trouble corralling all that excitement and all that enthusiasm into a simple, and easily understood message. On my personal blog, I’ve written about the 5 Biggest Do-it-Yourself Marketing Mistakes. In this list, I’ve identified the most commonly mistakes people make with regards to their advertising. These errors are not a result of willful intent, or the customer loudly stating “I do not want my advertising to work!”  Instead, the culprit is actually the very enthusiasm which spurred the idea for the business in the first place, and this is where a marketing company can truly help a business realize its marketing potential.

It’s a matter of perspective.

It’s a very hard thing to do for any person  – to distance oneself from his passion – and that’s really what work is, it is a passion. People simply don’t get into (and stay in) a line of work if they aren’t passionate about it, and they certainly do not start a business around something they hate to do.  A business for any owner is truly the extension of himself – he pours his heart and soul into the company, he dedicates countless hours of education, research and hand-on experience into development and customer service, he is intimately entwined with his venture in every facet – and that familiarity, that passion, can be the biggest roadblock to successfully marketing the product or service. Personally speaking, I can market any company; any service. It comes easy to me. It’s natural… EXCEPT when it comes to marketing my company or my employer. In this case, I am so passionate, so intimately involved and invested in its success that crafting a finely tuned campaign or project is like pulling teeth; I stress about the smallest detail. I obsess over the most inane nuance. I lose sleep. I stop eating. I sulk around and grumble and talk to myself in a seemingly fruitless effort to sort out and work through all the mental blocks I’ve imposed upon myself.

My greatest obstacle in marketing my own interests is removing my own interests from the equation. And I’m not alone.

Hiring a marketing company may seem like a big expense – to take a chunk of a limited marketing budget and give it to another company to provide a service you feel you can do yourself. But the single biggest benefit is not in the bulleted list I rattled off earlier, it’s that a good marketing company will be able to provide that much-needed 3rd party perspective; to provide an outsider’s view of the situation and provide meaningful suggestions and ideas designed to communicate that very passion and excitement in a manner that is easily understood by your target audience.

Over the years, I’ve developed a list of marketing and design “rules“. This list is a fun, tongue-in-cheek compilation of certain truths I’ve found during my time in this businesses. As I blog, I’ll occasionally reference these rules as a means of supporting my argument or position. You’ll likely see these pop up from time to time. In this case, I quote rule #3:

“The greatest obstacle to an effective campaign is usually the client.”

At first glance, this rule could be interpreted as a dig toward the client, but that’s not really the intent. The rule speaks to the proximity and personal investment a client has and his inability to step back and look at the marketing from the viewpoint of the customer. Too often, the client can assign importance to one particular area or service which interests the business owner personally, but would not have any benefit or generate interest on the part of the reader.  By marketing to the needs of the customer, a business will ultimately achieve its own success.

The question still remains as to whether a business truly needs a marketing company. So what’s the verdict?

I wish I had one. I wish I could tell you without a doubt that your investment in 3rd party marketing services was the right thing to do for every business. Truth is, it’s not. I do, in most instances I feel that a company could benefit from professional marketing guidance; someone to help keep your message fresh and on-point, identify new methods for advertising and locate key areas for targeting. A marketing company can free up your valuable time; time better spent on running the day-to-day business. A marketing company can serve as an advocate for your interests and negotiate better deals to stretch your marketing dollar a bit farther. They can be a helpful resource and help you achieve your goals faster and more efficiently than if you were to assume the entire burden.

If you do decide to consider a marketing company, here are ten considerations to keep in mind:

1. Does the marketing company’s business philosophy mesh with your own?
   – Do you feel their ethics and morals are in line with the way you run your business? It’s important that both sides share compatible philosophies.
2. Do they have experience in marketing your type of business?
   – A good general-service company should be able to handle any need whereas specialty agencies might focus on a particular industry and not be suited for every type of account.
3. Does their creative product meet your criteria for quality, inventiveness and communication?
   – Take a look at their work product. Is it polished? Can you easily determine the messaging? It is engaging? Does all their creative look similar or can you distinguish one client from another?
4. Do you feel as if they will work with you, or if you are working for them?
   – Do they engage you in healthy discussion or do they speak down to you? You will want an agency that offers suggestions and helps explain their decisions, and takes the time to address your concerns. You don’t want a firm that acts as the ultimate know-it-all on every topic and acts as if they know more about your company than you do (it does happen)!
5. Can you afford their billing rates?
   – All agencies bill at different rates. Ask for generalized product costs and hourly rates.
6. Do they have a good reputation among your business peers?
   – Ask around. Do people speak highly of the marketing firm’s strategies, people and product?
7. Do they share your enthusiasm for your business?
   – If the company can’t get excited about landing your account, how can they convey excitement to your customers?
8. Does the company do a good job of setting and meeting expectations?
   – Does the company explain timelines and costs to you before any project begins? Do they deliver on their promises (for both time and cost)?
9. How responsive are they to your concerns?
   – Do they get back to you the same day, next day, next week? Do you have to continually ask for updates or are they proactive?
10. What does your “gut” say about them?
    – Your instinct about a company will usually prove right. Do you believe they can do what they say or are they giving you a sales pitch?

If you are happy about your business, its position and rate of growth, then you probably do not need a marketing company to assist you with your advertising efforts. Obviously whatever you are doing is fine.  Do not get sucked into an ego-driven belief that having a marketing company handle your account is any measure of success. The only measure of success is your business’ performance by whatever criteria you deem important. But if your business isn’t performing at a level you would like; if customers aren’t flocking to your door; if you are unable or unwilling to devote the time to marketing your company then perhaps having an advertising company assist you is the best move you can make. Having an experienced, impartial and objective partner to help you develop and create a message that truly defines your company and appeals to your customers is an invaluable and powerful tool to have at your disposal.

It’s not me, it’s you.

Ironically enough, today marks my 15-year anniversary in the marketing business. And in celebration of this red-letter date, I’m offering up a tip on the single-most common problem with small business marketing:  Relevant benefit.

So what is relevant benefit? Simply put, it’s a message that speaks directly to and provides an resolution to a specific need of the customer.

When I say that relevant benefit is the most common problem with small business marketing, I mean that too often the business shapes their marketing message around how great the company, product or service is – the result is a very “me, me, me” message.

“Our product is revolutionary.”

“Our company has been around for 20 years.”

“Our president has umpteen years of industry experience.”

Great statements if you’re looking to make yourself feel good about what you do, but in most cases, it’s just excess noise to the potential customer. When I title this blog “It’s not me, it’s you.” that’s entirely the attitude a company must have in regards to its marketing. Advertising, when done right, is not an ego-centric proposition, it’s a value proposition. And far too often, especially with small businesses, it becomes a situation where a company spends more time telling people about how great it is in the hopes of building credibility, than it does telling customers about how much better their lives will be when they purchase the product or service in question.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to look at your product or service from the viewpoint of the customer.  Stop telling how good it is, and identify real and meaningful ways it can improve the lives of your customer. Every decision we make is based on an response to an emotional stimuli (‘will it make me happy’, ‘will it make my breath smell better’, ‘will it make me more attractive’, ‘will it make me more efficient’, etc.), and tapping into those needs is a great way to position your marketing message to have a tangible benefit to the customer.

As much as it may seem odd to say so, your marketing is less about you and more about the customer. Satisfy their needs and you’ll find that your needs will be met in return.

The purpose of marketing is to persuade people that you have the answers. So I ask you, what is a better way to get the response you seek? Is it to get on your soapbox and talk about your company, your staff and your reasons for being in business? Or is it to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and deliver your message in a way that directly communicates a real solution to their issues?

I’ll be the first to admit that all this seems like so much common sense. This isn’t a revolutionary breakthrough in marketing thought process; it’s been around for hundreds of years. But putting it into practice is often far harder than it seems. Over the years, I’ve seen thousands of small business (and some large business) marketing that fails to connect on a real level to the very people it means to reach.  If your advertising feels like it’s more about you than them, it’s probably time to step back and re-examine how you’re trying to communicate with your customers.

As you flip through the daily paper, watch television or sift through the contents of your mailbox, try to identify the marketing that attracts your attention. Then find the stuff that doesn’t. I’m sure you’ll easily point out a handful of advertisements that caught your attention; that spurred you to read further or open the envelope.  What’s that count look like? Five… ten… fifteen pieces? In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s easier to identify the stuff you didn’t notice. All you have to do is look at your recycle pile.

Did you know that the average American is exposed to  5,000 advertising messages every day? Of that number they recognize only 52, and of that number they remember only 4. The point that I’m trying to make is that it’s difficult to get your message heard in a noisy world. These numbers only highlight how important it is to make sure that when you do get a customer’s attention, your message is instantly understood and has value to the reader –  it has to contain a relevant benefit. Stop posing credentials and start providing solutions. After all, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

So how do go about including relevant benefit in your marketing? Comment below, or hit our Facebook discussion board and let us know what you think!