If You Tell More, You Sell More?
Many advertisers still believe in the cliché, if you tell more, you sell more. It seems these advertisers think as they are paying for ads, they have a right to mention everything about their brand; its features, benefits, sales offer, tagline, slogan and their dog's name. In doing so, advertisers forget the main purpose of the communication is to connect and convey the idea, not to overload the audience with information.
Gone are the days when you could sell more by telling more. Hard core push selling is being replaced with soft and pull-creating marketing and branding. We live in a cluttered world. You go to Chapters and will find hundreds of books on a topic. You Google a topic and get thousands of results. Though how many of these are relevant, is anybody's guess. People are not hungry for information. They are satiated and have become selective information-seekers. It is critical to understand that less is new more.
Try following seven proven steps for building an effective and successful communication model and you would be laughing all the way to the bank.
1. If you are in a selling business, you are primarily selling solutions. Solution to the needs and pain points of your target market. So find out what are the needs of your customers, select one or two needs that you can serve best and provide them with better solutions for these needs. The emphasis is on providing solutions that are BETTER than your competition.
2. Build your concept / communication around the solution you provide. Convey how your solution is better and how it serves the needs, whatever it may be, good-looking hair, a slim physique, a medical concern or pet grooming.
3. Set your communication objective.
4. Develop a sticky creative with a tagline, copy and include graphics (picture) to accentuate the creative into an aspiration, as a picture is better than thousand words. Remember, just one concept or offer per ad and leave plenty of white space.
5. Determine touch points for your target market. Implement an integrated media plan, that is, use more than one medium. If relevant, include digital and social media. These are cost-effective mediums and provide for excellent monitoring and measurement. Using more than one medium and leveraging online options is an efficient way to enhance Reach and get in-market synergy for increasing awareness.
6. Frequency is critical in getting heard and noticed. Opt for higher frequency. I believe if you have to select between number of mediums and frequency, reduce number of mediums to increase frequency. It pays to segment the market and become an active player in it.
7. Complete the loop by measuring market response, campaign results and the ROMI. Try incorporating built-in measuring tools. A communication initiative stays incomplete until you measure its effectiveness, learn from it and tweak the model for greater efficiency and effectiveness in future.
