One of the many things we excel at here at Visitivity Inc. is helping our clients learn how to “speak” to their main target audience. It’s one of those things that sounds simple, but isn’t.
The problem is that all of us have done the training we need to do, whether that be attending college, apprenticing with a master, or simply learning a trade on the job. And a huge part of training for any type of work you do is learning the language of that profession. Some of us have spent countless thousands of dollars to learn the type of technical verbiage necessary to do our jobs. But that verbiage does not work with clients. Of course, we still make the mistake of using it though. It may be because we are just so immune to it that we don’t realize the client’s eyes have glazed over and we sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher to them. . . “Wah wah wah wah wah.”
Sometimes it’s a conscious mistake because we want to prove we are experts in our field. So we write website text, marketing materials, and blog posts that are full of jargon, and are just not enticing to someone who is a “layman.”
I’ll give you some real world examples from the work we’ve done with clients. We recently created some brochures for a client who is a plumber who created his own water treatment systems for sale. He gave me all the information he thought I needed for those brochures, and it included a long list of specs for the system, that he wanted included in the brochure. Is it important for that brochure to have all of the technical specs of the water filtration system he is trying to sell? Not really. It’s much more important for potential clients to know why they might need the system and how it will make their life easier. Plus, believe it or not, you don’t actually want to give a client all the information they need in a brochure. It should be created in a way to make them want more information so they take an action like going to your website or calling you. Once you are with them in person, you can talk a bit about specs, but even then, keep it to a minimum, and pay close attention to your client’s body language and facial expressions. That will tell you if what you’re saying is selling them on the product or service, or merely boring them to death.
Note what I did there in speaking about what should go into the brochure. It’s not about the “what” for the client, whether you’re talking about a product or a service. It’s not about the “how” necessarily either. It’s about the “why.” Why do they want or need the product or service? Why do they want to buy it from you? And when I say it’s not about the “how,” I’m talking about how the product or service works. Clients don’t necessarily need that information. What they need to know is “how” the product or service is going to make their life better, easier, happier.
Because that’s the crux of it isn’t it? Honestly, we have so many choices these days, even going to the grocery store is trying because there are so many choices. I mean even choosing a shampoo can be difficult with so many choices. So the information you want to give clients about your product or service needs to be succinct and mostly it needs to directly address what it is they need in their life. So next time you are writing text for any of your marketing materials, make sure you put yourself in your potential client’s shoes. Does reading what you wrote make you want to take an action like calling for more information? If not, then you need to go back to the drawing board.
Of course, you could just make it easy on yourself and hire us to create those marketing materials. We promise to create text that creates a need for your potential clients to call you.
For more information call Visitivity Inc. at 239-878-4641
