When a prospect sees or hears your ad, he wants to know one thing and one thing only:
“What’s in it for ME?”
If you don’t answer that question–pronto–guess what happens? That ad is tossed, deleted, or ignored.
This is one of the biggest mistakes I see companies make. They’re so busy tooting their horns about how long they’ve been in business, why their products are better than the competition’s, how much they’ve spent on this and that. (Yes, those are all important, but they come later.)
You need to grab your prospect’s attention first. She needs a good reason to keep reading or listening. And the fact that you are located across the street from the library is not a good reason. What can you do for her? Why would she want to do business with you? What pain can you ease or what problem do you solve?
You need to know what you can do for your prospect before you write the first word of your ad copy. You need to understand what would motivate your prospect to buy.
If you don’t know, ASK.
Ask your best customers why they buy from you. Ask past customers why they don’t buy from you now and what you need to do to get them back. A little research now saves a lot of headaches later.
Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. What pain or problem does he or she have that you can help with? That is what your advertising needs to be about, not how much you’ve invested in your company, blah blah, blah.
Make it about them and you’ll never go wrong.
ASK!
Excellent advice, Melody. Too many companies don’t even realize that they are too focused on how great they are. And that they are doing so across all their marketing — from brochures to their services web page. You are right on–companies must look at it from the prospect’s perspective. Sometimes it’s easier said than done!