USE THIS WHENEVER YOU WANT YOUR MARKETING
COMMUNICATION TO REALLY WORK!
TEN CRUCIAL THINGS YOU MUST DO TO CREATE SUCCESSFUL
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS EVERY TIME
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Our new and barely passed federal tax laws will have many,
many consequences. One of them will be that there will be a
lot less money around and a lot less tolerance for wasting
what money there is. This means you've got to get a lot
savvier about the marketing communications you create.
You've got to do more to be sure they're going to produce
the results you want. Otherwise, you're just wasting your
organization's slender resources... and that in daunting
times like these just won't do.
To give you a leg up in the increasingly stiff competition
ahead, here are ten things you can do to ensure that the
marketing communications you produce will do the job for
you... and not just waste your time and money.
#1: Stop Doing Your Marketing Communications The Way You
Usually Do Them
New times demand new ways of acting. It's crucial you
understand this and bring this insight to the production of
all your marketing communications. In the past, you may have
had the luxury of throwing these communications together.
Does this sound familiar? You need a brochure... or a fund
raising letter... or a media release... or an internal memo.
Instead of thinking through who you're talking to, what you
want them to do, when you want them to do it, and motivating
the quickest possible action, you just throw out the usual
"me-centered" tripe. It hasn't worked well in the past,
true, but at least the job is done. Right?
Wrong!
To begin with, you must make a commitment to a new way of
handling your marketing communications. You must never
create one just to meet a deadline... you must always be
clear about what you're doing and ensure that the
communication you create meets your objective. The days are
gone now when creating anything is acceptable. Marketing is,
beyond everything else, the art of making designated publics
take promptest action. If your marketing communication fails
to do this to the maximum extent possible, it has failed...
whether you met a "deadline" or not.
#2: Be Clear About Who You're Talking To
Correct marketing communications are all addressed to a
specific person or group of people. What's more, these
people know right away that you're talking to them. But,
consider for a moment the marketing communications you put
out now. Pick up one and scrutinize it. Can you honestly say
that the person you're attempting to reach will immediately
know you're talking to her? Or will she have to delve deeper
and deeper into your jargon and self-congratulating language
to find out that you're talking to her? In all candor, I
think we both know the answer to this question, don't we?
While you may know who you're trying to reach... you make it
damned difficult for your audience to know. This, of course,
is unacceptable in our new, resource-pinched age.
Before writing any marketing communication, write down just
who you're talking to. Is it a particular person? Is it a
group of people with common attributes? Don't guess. Know.
Nine times out of ten, you'll find that you're muddled about
just who you're talking to... and therefore your focus will
be unclear. Successful marketing is severely pointed
marketing; it's designed for specific people... and focuses
exclusively on motivating these people to act as quickly as
possible. Moreover, it lets these people know RIGHT AWAY
that the sender is talking to them, so that the intended
audience is always clear that they are indeed just the right
people to get the message.
#3 Be Clear About What You're Trying To Achieve
Every marketing communication has a point... to motivate the
fastest possible action. Unfortunately, all too often people
writing marketing communications forget this. Instead of
trying to motivate action they get bogged down by trying to
"educate" or "inform." But your job is to target just the
right people... and, through your client-centered marketing
communications, get them to take prompt action.
Thus, before writing a single word of any marketing
communication, be clear about what you want this
communication to help achieve. It will help if you think in
terms of completing this sentence, "When the person I'm
writing this communication to gets it, I want him/her
to...."
Foolish "marketers" will complete the sentence by writing
things like "read it," "study it," "think about what I've
written." Friend, in marketing "reading," "studying," and
"thinking about" are never where it's at. FOCUSED ACTION is
always the objective. Moreover, you cannot leave the kind of
action up to the recipient. You've got to determine what you
want the recipient to do... and you've got to do everything
possible to motivate just that action.
In this regard, here are some kinds of specific actions you
might want to motivate. "I want the recipient to:
## pick up the phone immediately and call to volunteer to
assist at our annual special event;
## fill out an action coupon and return it to let us know
he'll help in some way or other;
## make an immediate financial contribution to our work,
etc."
In short, I want the recipient to do something SPECIFIC, not
just pause, mull, deliberate... and, quite probably, do
nothing further.
#4: Understand What Your Designated Recipient Wants... And
What He's Anxious About
I've got some sad news for you: the people you're contacting
with your marketing communications aren't focused on what
you're doing. They're consumed with their own wants... and
anxieties. This, of course, is always true, but in difficult
times like these, they're even more self-focused than ever.
You must understand this and create your marketing
communications accordingly.
Your marketing communications must focus on what the
designated recipient wants... and what he's anxious about.
Thus, before even attempting to create any final marketing
communication, you need to spend time brainstorming the
wants of the recipient. How do you find these out? Keep
asking recipients what they want... and keep recording this
information for just such a time as this. Remember, you
never have to think up recipient wants all by yourself;
that's daft. You do need to keep asking recipients about
their wants... and prioritizing them based on what you hear
and discover.
By the same token, you've got to keep a list of what
recipients are anxious about. As all good marketers know,
recipient anxieties are crucial in getting recipients to
take faster action. If your recipients are worried... and if
you will work hard to ensure that they understand you can
deal with these worries either in whole or in part, why,
then, you're well on your way to having a truly successful
marketing communication -- one, that is, that motivates the
fastest possible response from just the people you want to
take action.
#5 Be Clear About What You Can Do For The Designated
Recipient
To be a person is to want. To want is to keep hoping to find
that which will satisfy the want. For your marketing
communication to succeed you must be clear about how you can
satisfy recipient want... and to present what you have in
the clearest possible way.
Is this what you do now? I doubt it...
Take a look at your existing marketing communications. Are
they as clear as possible about precisely what you offer the
designated recipient? Or is what you offer disfigured by
jargon, complicated language, third-person presentation, and
a lack of specificity? I have my suspicions...
The sad truth is, most nonprofit personnel either don't know
very well just what they have to offer... or if they do
know, won't take the time and trouble to render this
information in the most direct, understandable fashion. As a
result, they keep producing marketing communications that
are distinguished by an over abundance of unhelpful language
instead of a series of clear, immediately understandable
paragraphs about precisely what the recipient will get from
the organization.
Since good marketing is always simple, recipient-centered
marketing, the best way of creating these paragraphs is to
begin each one with just these two words, "You get..." It's
not flashy... but it works.
#6: Make It Easy For The Prospect To Get What You've Got
The people who are going to do well in our difficult times
are those who have considered how to make it easy for their
prospects to get the benefits they've got. Are you one of
these people? Or are you blocking the success of your
marketing communications by failing to think through what
will happen when the prospect responds:
## Have you asked the prospect to call you but not provided
a means of handling his call 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year?
## Have you asked the prospect to act without briefing
personnel who man your phone system on what to do when he
calls?
## Have you asked the prospect to send in a written response
but not walked the response process through to ensure that
his expression of interest gets handled in a prompt,
reliable fashion?
There is, you see, no point in creating any marketing
communication unless and until you can handle the response.
On the one hand, you must be clear about what you want the
prospect to do... and make it easy for him to do it; on the
other, you must be sure you can handle the response once you
receive it.
#7: Motivate The Fastest Possible Prospect Action
Take a look at any of your marketing communications, your
basic organizational brochure for instance. Can you honestly
say you've done what was necessary to motivate the fastest
possible action from the recipient? Or does it say in
effect, "Whenever you get around to moving is just fine with
us, don't even think of troubling yourself now"?
The sad fact is, the bulk of "marketing" communications
produced by nonprofit organizations are passive. They don't
seek to motivate immediate action and you can review them in
vain for any sign of any motivational device. This, of
course, is wrong.
No marketing communication is complete which doesn't seek to
motivate IMMEDIATE action. To achieve this objective, means
thinking through what you've got to offer... and doing what
is necessary to get your designated public to act now to
take advantage of it.
Say you're running a program where space is of the
essence... where you can only take an additional 10 people
before you're full. Then tell prospects just how little
space you've got... and remind them of what they'll be
losing if they don't act IMMEDIATELY to get it. Don't just
say you have a program... say you have a problem that's
going to be full soon... and that the recipient will be
sorry to miss (for whatever reasons). In short, MOTIVATE,
don't just inform.
#8: Provide Prospect Reassurances
Whatever you're offering, most of the people you're
connecting with feel some degree of uncertainty about doing
anything to get it. Prospects are always asking themselves,
one way and another, if they should act. Most decide to do
nothing -- which is neither to your interest or theirs.
That's why you must offer reassuring devices in your
marketing communications.
To this end, you should put testimonials in all your
marketing communications, endorsements from real people who
have used your services and found them beneficial. These
testimonials should focus on what the person providing the
testimonial got, and they should always be signed. In
addition, you should be prepared to provide references,
names and phone numbers of others who have found your
services helpful. In short, every marketing communication
you produce should be studded with results-centered
testimonials from people who have reason to know that what
you do works.
Where do you get these testimonials? Why, you ask for them.
Every time you provide a service, you ask the person
receiving it whether what you've done has benefited him. If
he says yes, ask how. And ask for specifics. It is not
enough to know, for instance, that someone has gotten
something useful from one of yours services; you need to
know how much. It is, you see, the specificity which is the
most useful part of the testimonial. Specific, believable
results convince others to use what you're offering... not
just the fact that someone they don't know has derived some
unspecified advantage. They are right to know how much
advantage people like them have derived... and they are
right to press you for such details.
#9: Assess The Success of Your Marketing Communications...
And Make Necessary Changes Accordingly
Sadly, too many nonprofit personnel don't understand that
the creation and use of any marketing communication is
necessarily part of an ongoing process. This means that it
is never enough merely to create and use a marketing
communication, no matter how superior it may be; you must
review its performance and make changes accordingly. You
must be prepared for this review process... before you ever
write the original communication in the first place!
Thus, have you:
## put a code in every marketing communication that enables
you to ascertain where results are coming from?
## informed telephone answering personnel that they must
request this coded information and retain it for you?
## promised yourself that you'll take this information into
consideration before you create the next document, so you
can maximize what it useful and delete what isn't? Or are
you just gong to keep winging it, hoping that your hunches
are correct, but being continually unable to verify them?
Every marketing communication you send provides you with
useful feed-back information. But you must take the time to
gather these data... and decifer them. When resources count
as much as they do now, it's entirely unsatisfactory to
throw this information away and fail to utilize it to
improve your next marketing communication.
#10: Post This Article
Over the next several weeks and months, you'll have lots of
marketing communications to create. Each of them will entail
a significant investment of your scarce time and money. Each
of them makes sense to create and use if and only if it
produces a meaningful return. To this end, clip this article
right now and post it where you can see it before you start
working on your next marketing communication. It'll remind
you that you can make every marketing communication
successful... and that no marketing communication can be
considered completed unless it meets these necessary
specifications.
**********************************************************************
Dr. Jeffrey Lant is author of 11 books including MONEY
MAKING MARKETING: FINDING THE PEOPLE WHO NEED WHAT YOU'RE
SELLING AND MAKING SURE THEY BUY IT (285 pages, $39.50
postpaid); THE UNABASHED SELF-PROMOTER'S GUIDE: WHAT EVERY
MAN, WOMAN, CHILD AND ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW
ABOUT GETTING AHEAD BY EXPLOITING THE MEDIA (365 pages,
$39.50 postpaid), and MONEY TALKS: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO
CREATING A PROFITABLE WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR IN ANY FIELD (308
pages, $35 postpaid). You can get these by calling JLA
Publiactions at (617) 547-6372 or writing 50 Follen St.,
suite 507, Cambridge, MA 02138.