Tiny tweaks can make the biggest difference – right down to one three letter word, the most important word in marketing: YOU.
Having the right audience is important.
Having the right product or service is important.
But having the right message is arguably the MOST important part of your marketing.
As business owners, marketers, sellers, we talk about what we know. And what we know best are the features and benefits of our product. The old way to sell was all “focus on benefits, not features” which worked for a time – but today’s audience is looking for more than that. We have Amazon to find benefits, pricing, and options, and we have social media and reviews to do our research.
If you want our loyalty (and our money), then we expect more: we expect solutions to our pain points when we choose a product or service…or else we’re going to shop based on price.
Get to know your ideal audience’s pain points as well as you do your product or service. And then ONLY talk about those.
“YOU” in action (but not as creepy as the Netflix show) can look like this:
Let’s say you’re a hairdresser who is looking to upsell the hair products that you believe in. You could talk about the chemicals (or lack of chemicals) in the product, you could talk about the brand, the price, the smell…none of those are going to grab your audience’s attention.
Instead, try starting with HEY YOU! CURLY HAIRED GIRLS WHO STRAIGHTEN YOUR HAIR DAILY…THIS IS FOR YOU!
You’d better believe, I’m clicking that link. Us curly-haired girls fight with the damage we do on the daily.
Or how about ATTENTION ALL CHEER MOMS! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A HAIRSPRAY THAT WON’T CAUSE TANGLES, TEARS, OR DRAIN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT?
Cheer moms, dance moms (plus a whole other audience who knows they use hairspray like they’re in cheer) are all giving you their rapt attention. NOW they are primed and ready. NOW you can talk about the features they’ll care about. NOW you can share the value of your product.
Don’t underestimate telling us who your ad or content is for. If it’s not meant for me (I’m not a cheer mom, so I’ll just keep scrolling happily) then you haven’t wasted my time and I appreciate you. If it is meant for me (or other curly girls with zero time and even less patience with beauty routines) then you’ve gotten my attention and I appreciate you.
YOU. It’s magical.
For today, go through your marketing and see where you could replace “I…” or “We….” with a simple, loving, attention-grabbing, problem-solving “you.”