These days there’s so much expert advice about public relations, marketing, website performance and so on that another lengthy article on these topics won’t do you – or me – any good.
Instead, I shall concentrate briefly on what I believe are the three key considerations for communication success.
1 What you say
Nearly a century ago Elmer Wheeler came up with that memorable marketing message: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” He was underlining the importance of the customer experience – the benefits of the product, rather than its features.
We’re all understandably and justifiably proud of the all the good things we’ve crammed into our product or service offering, and it’s very easy to list them all. But that’s seldom enough to convince customers.
Grab customers’ upfront attention by focusing on the benefits of using your product or service. Once you have their attention, the features will serve as positive reinforcement, demonstrating how you will deliver the promised benefits.
2 How you say it
Grammar and spelling aside, language gives us the freedom to pick from a multitude of styles. I favour a newsy approach to copywriting, because most readers are already familiar with it. Additionally, it is a neat way to deliver benefits and features in descending order of importance.
This traditional ‘press release’ approach provides scalable material for a wide range of outputs including traditional print media, social media and that all-important medium over which you have full control: your website
3 Going online
I’ve recently reworked my website to emphasis the benefits that I can bring to my clients. The features are still there, but they are off-menu and are a click through from the focus pages.
At the same time, I have rewritten my site title and description to make it more relevant to potential clients in my geographical area. My Google search performance has shown a marked improvement.
So now I am generating more material to keep my site fresh – and using social media to attract people to it. Perhaps you’d like to chat about how we could develop a similar programme for your business. Please use my contact form to get in touch.