If in this day and age of information overload, business operators think that a self-congratulatory message is going to make the cut of what gets digested and what doesn’t, they might be in for a surprise.
Because if your customers are like me, their first goal of the day is to clear their email inbox. This means then there’s a fair chance that unless your content — or indeed your subject header — is completely compelling, your email or social media post is going to go the way of junk mail and head straight for the trash.
Competition for customers’ attention is just that cut-throat.
Yet, there are still those who think that their news is good news for the recipient.
Take the email I got the other day from a social media professional. The entire e-newsletter was about how well his new program was doing and how it was hitting record levels yada yada yada…
My response? “Who cares?”
Don’t tell me how great you are. Give me some information that’s useful to my business. If that helps me, I’ll know you’re great and won’t need you to tell me so yourself.
Now, I kind of get the notion of being inspired by someone you admire. But surely you’re better turning that around into a different kind of message — how you helped someone improve their world via your product or service and what you did along the way.
That approach has two benefits.
First, you are proving your credibility by presenting a tangible positive result. Second, you are providing the reader with information that is useful to them.
If you are extra lucky, there may be a third benefit in that it is shared with others.
It’s really just turning your boast on its head to make your information the hero — not you.
So instead of saying, “we had our best month ever”, tell them what you did to create that success.
Better still, get your customer to tell them. There’s nothing quite as compelling as a customer being prepared to go on the record to rave about your product.
As this blog has previously suggested, if your message hasn’t got this WIFM (What’s In It For Me) then its simply not going to cut through.
We have to remember that our recipients are getting bombarded with messages every second of their waking lives.
In fact one report recently suggested that we might be exposed to as many as 10,000 promotional messages on any given day!
If your message is going to cut through that degree of noise, it’s got to be good.
Sadly my correspondent’s email was so full of itself that it didn’t make it past my trusty bullshit filter and was quickly deleted.
Make sure your message doesn’t face the same fate.
Give them their WIFM. Then give it to them again.
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Craig has been assisting and educating Australian smaller businesses with their marketing and website requirements since 2002 via his business The E Team.
