BY SCOTT WHITE on JANUARY 8, 2010
What does your marketing say about your company?
Literally.
Do your press releases and marketing materials say what you think they say?
It’s very possible that they don’t.
Over the past two decades we’ve reviewed thousands of press releases and marketing materials produced by hundreds of companies. And it only takes a few seconds to determine if the messages were written with the customer in mind or if they were written in a way that only a CEO could love.
If the later, more often than not the company has come to us trying to figure out why their marketing is not working as well as it should. The answer is almost always “content.”
And in today’s Facebook/Twitter/Google/140-character/blog-filled world, where potential customers will give your message only seconds to grab their attention, content and the way it is presented has never been more important.
That’s because the explosion of the Web and social media as a communications tool has been the great equalizer. Anyone from the largest multinational to the smallest mom and pop can have an online presence with equal ease.
But when all your competitors are on Facebook and are using twitter and have their press releases and Web site optimized, how do you separate yourself from the pack? The most effective way is “content” — what you say and how you say it.
If your customer or your employees or whatever audience you are trying to reach has to struggle to figure out “what’s in it for me,” then you have lost them.
Want a great example? Check the hundreds of press releases posted on the PR Newsire or the Business Wire each day. Many — if not most — are written in a way that touts the company, product or service from the company’s point of view rather than the potential audience. What a waste.
In his terrific book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” David Meerman Scott devotes much of his time to the importance of matching content to audience. He even offers a list of words and phrases guaranteed to make a customer or reporter hit the “delete” button.
So how do you make sure that your messages are resonating with your audiences?
Look at your last press release or your last brochure. But don’t look at it from your perspective. You don’t matter.
Rather, look at it from the perspective of the intended audience.
Why would reporters, who receive dozens of press releases daily, give yours a second glance? Why would a customer who found it on the Web read it? Is it apparent early why they should care about what you have to say and why it is important to THEM? Or does your press release spend the first paragraph talking about your company being a “leading solution” or one of the world’s “largest” or “best” or “most innovative” while hiding the real message halfway down the page?
Does your promotional brochure address the questions and concerns that your prospects or potential customers care about. Are the materials written in a way they will understand or are they filled with industry jargon that only insiders will understand?
If your message is all about you and not about them, then the chances are excellent that your message is being lost in cyberspace.
Of course, before you can truly write for your audience you have to understand what it is they want to know. But that’s a topic for another blog.
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Scott White is president of BCA Franchising and BizCom Associates.
