Copyright
(c) 2008 Judy Murdoch
Highly Contagious Marketing
http://www.judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm
Nancy
is a small business owner who helps nonprofit groups create fund raising events
that can double- even triple- their average donation.
Until
recently, Nancy has gotten her business primarily through in-person meetings:
attending networking events, taking people out for coffee, and giving presentations.
In-person is great for getting local business but Nancy wants to serve a national
customer base. So she hired someone to design a website and using emails and postcards
to market her services.
She's been using emails and postcards
for the last ten months and the results have been dismal.
"I
haven't gotten a single new client," she told me. So I took a look at the
emails she was sending out and I immediately saw the problem.
Enthusiasm
Can Turn People Off
Nancy loves her work and really wants
her clients to succeed. It's hard to spend time with her and not get excited about
what she's doing.
Her enthusiasm works to her advantage
when she meets people in person.
It seems logical then that
enthusiasm would work in all her other marketing. Wrong.
Establishing
Trust is the First Step
There's a saying, "People want
to know you care, before they care about what you know."
As
human beings, we have a natural desire to belong and feel valued. It's the reason
why people hate to be sold to...we don't feel understood or valued for who we
are.
When you meet someone in person, it's a lot easier
to build trust because you can communicate that you care in many ways: in your
tone of voice, in the way you look at others, in your gestures.
For
people like Nancy, building trust occurs almost immediately during in person meetings
because she communicates that she cares both in what she says and what she doesn't
say. But when communicating in less personal ways--using email, postcards, and
other types of written media, you have only words to work with.
Which
means you must take an extra step and deliberately demonstrate empathy before
you enthusiastically share why your products and services are so wonderful.
Establishing
Trust Means Starting with the Negative
So how do you show
you care when you use email, web pages, and other mediums that limit your ability
to express yourself?
You start with the problem or pain
your customer is likely experiencing.
When you do this you
are saying, in effect to your audience:
"I understand
you have this problem that you're struggling to solve."
"I,
too, have struggled with it"
"Through my experience,
education, research, etc., I have came up with a solution to solve the problem."
"My
solution will work for you too."
Once you say these
things, you are free to babble away about your wonderful solution.
Example:
Establishing Trust First
So let's go back to Nancy. Instead
of immediately starting her emails off with how she helps her clients double their
fund raising results she begins with demonstrating empathy and understanding.
Before:
"Non-profits,
let me show you how to double- , even triple your donations."
After:
"Non-profits,
are you struggling to compete for funding in today's difficult economy?"
Can
you feel the difference?
Nancy's email then went on to describe
her own struggles with fund raising and how she developed her solution. When Nancy
began using this approach, her prospect inquiries immediately increased and she's
now in the process of turning some of the prospects into clients.
But
she first needed to demonstrate she understood and cared before they were willing
to make the call.
Bottom Line
The
less personal the communication, the more important it becomes to first establish
trust with your prospects.
For emails, blog posts, web pages,
etc.:
1. Start with the Negative: demonstrate you understand
their problem and struggle to solve it.
2. End with the
Positive: share why your solution is better and will work
