Whenever I talk to a businessman or woman about their efforts to market their business I face the same old questions – “what are we doing wrong?” “We’ve tried advertising, websites, brochures, sales letters – but nothing seems to give us the response we need – what should we try next?”
It’s often difficult to advise them that actually they may well be doing the right things – but not actually executing them terribly well. And this often stems from the fact that we can all get far too close to our own businesses, making it difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of potential customers or clients. This is true whether you are selling a piece of software, accountancy services, or widgets. And if you cannot put yourselves in the shoes of your customer how can you respond to your marketing in the way a customer would and give an objective evaluation of what you are saying in your advertising and promotional materials? Here are a few suggestions of how you can review, and potentially improve your marketing efforts:
Objectively Review Your Marketing Materials
Take a close look at your marketing materials – your product literature, company brochure, advertisements, sales approach letters and your website, and try and read them as a client or prospect would. That’s often quickly and with a reasonable critical or cynical eye.
Ask yourself: What are we trying to achieve? And have we managed to get our message across in a clear and simple way? Ask - who should be reading this material? What will interest them? And make them want to read? Don’t forget that what interests you won’t necessarily interest your client or prospect.
Rewrite and Restructure Materials
If you do decide your literature falls short, and decide to rewrite, then follow some basic principles:
