Sometimes in Marketing not everything you say will exactly be liked or ‘Resonate’ with everyone. However, the alterative of being ‘nice’ often has the opposite effect – you don’t get noticed and sell zero!
I just had a meeting with two awesome clients & colleagues that I have super admiration and respect for! After speaking about Marketing, New Concepts & Great Ideas – we spoke a lot about Public Relationships, Effective Marketing Messages & really making a stand for something.
As part of the discussion, we were looking at key messages and although this can be a challenge – in marketing at times it critical for taking a stand for the uniqueness and strengths of what you stand for. It is very possible that the more we take a stand, is the the more likely we may “Offend” people and equally attract & repel potential customers.
Going back to where I am coming from was this one book I read very early on in my Marketing Career titled exactly that “Your Marketing Sucks” by Mark Stevens. I found it an incredible read some years ago and even though I don’t agree with some of the extremes in this book, much of the thinking set my foundation today for effective marketing and approaches.
Basically the message of this book distilled to this (at least in my mind):
– If your Marketing is “Nice” no one cares. If any advertisement doesn’t bring you sales, it’s not working. So make it stand out, powerful, controversial and do whatever it takes to get sales.
This is obviously quite an extreme type of statement / position and there are some examples and situations where I don’t think it stacks up. However conceptually, I think this is sound advice in that in business it’s very easy to get into a mode of pumping out advertisements / messages that are “Nice”, “Don’t Offend” and are “Pleasant” and also DON’T SELL YOUR PRODUCTS & SERVICES!
In my own business (such as I am in this article), I have found that overtime the more I take a stand is the more effective I get in my approach. This is exactly the same for my clients. The more I find they:
– Sell!
– Make Promises!
– Deliver Great Reasons to Buy!
– Are 100% Happy to Stand out on the Edge!
– Have no problem at all with not everyone liking their message and are being truly unique and focused.
– Is the more they Sell. Pure & simple and I have seen this play out hundreds of times.
My advice and thinking? When it comes to your Marketing & Message – you got to have a unique edge and something powerful to stand for. Come up with a message / approach that may even make you a little nervous. Why? Because it will probably stand out and get cut through against the thousands of messages we see every day.
Can you attack silly ideas in your industry? Play on topical news? Make an incredible yet realistic / verifiable claim about your services? Say something cool in a blog to get attention? (Like I have here as you are reading it!).
The more you can stand out and shine, is the more engagement you can expect – which can of course translate to more Awesome Sales & Potential High Value Clients.
Trust this tip has helped and love your work!
About the Author:
Edward Zia is a Marketing Mentor who loves having Effective Marketing that works! He loves helping Awesome Small Business Owners in anything from Strategy to Messaging and has learned the hard way over the years that unless you “Stand Out” you won’t get noticed. If you enjoy these thoughts and want to learn more, a great place to start is his Online Premium Video Course – “The Awesome Marketing Vault” >> Access it Here!
No responses yet