Marketing Success—The Truth About
Communicating With Your Prospects

In the last two weeks, we’ve talked about two of the most critical
elements in an advertising piece, an attention-grabbing, specific
headline, and the power of trance-inducing stories.

But what do you do once you have the prospect’s interest? How do
you keep it? How do you transform a wary prospect into a satisfied client?
A cynic into a believer? A naysayer into an advocate?

How do you attract clients who don’t care one iota about you?

By talking about what they are most interested in…themselves.

The truth is, prospects just don’t care about what you’re selling or what a swell person you are. They want to know how your product or service is going to:

If it doesn’t do one of those two things, they aren’t interested. Think about it. Would you be?

When you, or your writer, creates your advertising copy, how many times does the word, “you” appear compared to the word “we?” Is it a 3:1 ratio? Because it should be.

Effective marketing copy speaks in terms of the prospect’s wants, needs, dreams, fears and goals, not yours.

Sample Excerpt:

How to Pay Less for the Same Legal Advice

How many of these situations remind you of…you?

Story #1:
You have a “to-do” list 42 items long and you’re only on number 3. Getting to your lawyer is number 6 but his/her office is only open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can’t take off work. Your lunch hour isn’t long enough, and paying $350 for 15 minutes worth of answers to simple legal questions doesn’t make a lot of financial sense under any circumstances!

Wish there was an easier way to get what you need for less? Click here to find out how.

Story #2:
You’ve made the time to visit your attorney and an hour and a half after your scheduled meeting, he/she is ready to see you. Anxious to make the most of your time, you launch into your questions and begin taking notes furiously. That evening, or maybe several days later, you sit down with your notes and discover they are only slightly more legible than ancient hieroglyphics. Conclusion? Time wasted. Money squandered.

Wish there was an easier way to get what you need for less? Click here to find out how.

Story #3:
You’ve finally pinned your attorney down for a meeting time, which is more or less mutually agreeable—i.e. more agreeable to him/her, less agreeable to you. You ask your questions, get your answers and 8 minutes after you leave his/her office, you realize you forgot a crucial question. Result? Time to make another expensive appointment.

Notice how this excerpt doesn’t talk about how great “we” are, how much experience “we” have, what awards “we’ve” won or how “we” have more integrity and commitment to customer service than anyone you’ll ever meet.

It talks about what excites the prospect most…the prospect.

In your next Marketing Success e-mail, we’ll discuss why you want your prospects to be emotional and how to get them there.

Committed to your marketing success,
Lina Penalosa
April 19 , 2005