I find myself wincing just about every time I listen to a radio spot while in my car, see a TV spot on cable, or fan through the pages of a trade magazine. Ad after ad ends with the same sad story: no results because no one other than the firm putting out the message cares. As they say, “boring leads to ignoring.” In fact, I’d venture to guess that 85% to 90% of advertising lay the same leaden egg.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your marketing activities are performing the way you’d expect them to, odds are they’re not. And although there are master classes you might take in creativity, marketing strategy, and media planning, it’s very likely the problem falls within four main areas. Checking off each point, you can estimate your ad’s effectiveness even before you place it.
Here are the four fundamental concepts that can make a meaningful difference in how successful your next marketing effort is:
And by that, I mean not just compelling to you and your staff, but to a completely disinterested audience. If you’ve followed any of my writings in the past, you know that I frequently observe that people don’t like advertising and salesy marketing material, and completely ignore the boring or hard-to-figure-out kind. So, whatever you have to say must go the distance to alter their indifference.
Don’t just tell your audience you’re “a leader in the industry” or that you’ve been around for three generations and have the most caring and compassionate people in the business on staff. They’ve heard that so many times before from you and your competitors that it means nothing to them.
Instead, tell them something they don’t know, something that might even surprise them. You can tell when a firm’s messaging is truly compelling when you think, “Gee, I didn’t know that! Let me check them out.” We sometimes call that a “sticky” message, one that has staying power after the reader has driven by your outdoor board, viewed your Facebook video or static post, or put aside the direct mail postcard they received.
One of the most egregious mistakes cemeteries and funeral homes make is simply laying out all the features of their product or service and expecting the audience to figure out why that’s important to them. Do you like doing that in your personal life? I’m going to say you have neither the time nor inclination to start doing mental gymnastics to try and understand the benefits to you. Seriously, who does?
I’ve sat through countless focus groups where people were presented with multiple sales points to see what is remembered. After just three minutes of being exposed to these sales points, close to 80% of people can’t name even one of them! The reason is that they’re just words and void of any context, facts, or interesting story.
Often, that’s done in the form of five to seven bullet points, such as:
Yikes! There’s no emotion in that. There’s no selling. There’s no story or connection.
Instead of praying that maybe one or two bullets might hit home with some member of the audience—or worse, trying to be all things to all people—why not focus on one point at a time and spell out why that point really matters.
People don’t buy bullets. They don’t buy features. But they do buy benefits and ideas that add value to their lives. Another marketing truth is this: People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it and “what’s in it for me?”
All too often, with the funeral profession, I see ads and marketing material in which the logos and contact information are interchangeable, one company’s with another’s. None stands out, all look alike; thus all the players are perceived as a commodity.
Here’s a question for you: If your logo were blocked out of your ad or commercial, would the audience still know it’s yours? Take, for instance, Jack-In-The-Box. The commercials are radically different from McDonald’s. BMW’s ads are unmistakably BMW’s and not Mercedes’.
It’s a matter of message but also a matter of style, personality, and consistency. The more striking and distinctive your messaging is, the stronger, competitive impact they’ll make, while your competitions’ marketing could be just anybody’s. Acting, looking, and sounding like the “next guy” is no way to get attention. You’re simply just part of the herd. And that lets others get business that you should have had. Not a good option, right?
Don’t be “Beige” when you can be “Royal Blue.” C’mon, standout! People will notice … and that will be a good thing. Now, if figuring this out seems like hard work, it is. If you can’t do it, find someone or a company who can help.
With all the buzz about social media, it strikes me as odd that most businesses’ Facebook pages and outbound tweets have little in common with their owners’ main marketing messages. In part, that’s because the marketing messages aren’t that well-defined. But it’s also because the marketers don’t appreciate the importance of speaking with the same voice at any touchpoint. Good marketing is a collective enterprise and an erosive process.
For instance, if you’re a historic cemetery and the main story is about how your firm has been around for over 100 years, use your Facebook pages to tell interesting tidbits about the early days of your firm, the notable folks buried there, etc. Make sure your phone’s hold-message tells the same story. Make sure you host special events like tours or promotions that support the theme. If you don’t keep hammering away at the same selling proposition at every touchpoint, then each effort will conflict with every other.
While this is hardly a full compendium of marketing knowledge, if you make the effort to ensure your advertising and marketing is consistent with these four points, you’ll be out in front of 85% of your competition. And that’s the goal—to create messaging that your customers will react to … and that your competition will hate.