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One of my clients recently nominated his software for an award hoping to gain a little PR out of it. They didn’t achieve finalist status, but they did gain some extremely valuable (and surprising) feedback about their online demo.

Calling the demo boring, my client took the judges’ feedback to mean he needed to jazz up his presentation with a more sales-y approach and better delivery.

Yikes! What person wants an in-your-face sales pitch when they’re viewing an online demo, I asked? Instead, I suggested he use the demo to give prospects a real life look into how they would use his product.

In his case, he’s selling a presentation software to a non-technical audience. His software offers much more than PowerPoint, giving users the ability to incorporate audio, video, scanned documents, etc. into a presentation.

Their software isn’t the first on the market, but their competitors have a long-standing reputation for being difficult to use. That’s where my client stands out.

Yet calling my client’s product “easy to use” will only trigger doubt in most people’s minds, because let’s be honest, ease-of-use is one of those fluffy, non-tangible, over-used claims in the software industry. If your product really is that easy to use, I said, then prove it by taking your viewers on a journey through the demo.

I suggested he create a scenario where his viewers are in the driver’s seat, under a time crunch where they have just a few minutes to pull together an important presentation. Fortunately, everything they need is already on their laptop: video clip, audio recording, two before/after pictures, a few scanned PDFs, and a slide deck.

Through the demo, I said, show the viewer how they can literally create a presentation portfolio in under one minute. Then walk them through the presentation itself, showing them how they can quickly flip between video, pictures, PDFs, and slides; display before/after pictures side by side; and mark up the PDFs to emphasize points.

By adding a story line to a demo, you effectively accomplish three things:

1. You turn passive viewers into active participants,
2. You add perspective and context, letting viewers see firsthand what it would be like to use your tool on a daily basis, and
3. You create a more memorable demo experience that will likely “stick” in your prospect’s minds.

He’s working on revamping his demo now. I’ll keep you posted on what impact the story line has on his sales funnel.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Here’s the final 3 “How to Invoke Response” tips from the blog entry I started on April 21st.

How to Invoke Response Tip #7: Don’t expect miracles with one message.
Say it in different ways, and say it multiple times.

As kids we knew this well. When we were really little, we’d break our parents down by continually asking them for that candy in the store. As we grew older, our techniques became more clever. If, for example, we needed their permission to go out Saturday night, we waited until the “right” moment when we thought our parents would be most receptive to our request.

Bear in mind, I’m not suggesting that we try to “break” our readers by bombarding them with messages. Quite the opposite, this is a sure way to lose subscribers!

What I am suggesting however, is that prospects, like parents, will have moments when they’ll be more receptive to your message. If your message happens to arrive on an especially chaotic day in the office, they’ll probably ignore you, but if you send the exact same message on a less-stressful day, say three or five days later, they might actually “hear” you.

Some marketers already do this (I see this all the time with webinar announcements), but if you really want to boost response, don’t just parrot the same message. Mix it up a bit, using different arguments, analogies, and language to convince and compel readers to action. The different messages will catch a different group of prospects each time around.

How to Invoke Response Tip #8: Give them a reason to act NOW.
I’m amazed at the number of promotions I receive that don’t have a clear call to action. Maybe there are a lot of marketers sitting on a big wad of cash to burn, but if that’s not you, then I recommend you make it very clear in your promotions what action you want readers to take.

Setting a deadline works to move procrastinators and fence-sitters, but be careful not to set the limit too far out into the future because their enthusiasm for your product or offer will wane over time. I like to set deadlines that are at most one or two weeks out. When I give prospects more time (e.g. 30 days), I lose a portion of the initially-interested audience.

How to Invoke Response Tip #9: Give them something for free.
Last but not least, take a cue from all those infomercials that promote freebies with their offer. What do they know that we don’t? People love getting something for free. If you don’t believe me, watch how people behave at a trade show. Grown men go absolutely crazy for light-up toys, whirly-gigs, and stress-release balls.

Again I’m not suggesting you give away Ginsu knifes or a toy to boost response. Give instead, an e-book, one-page excerpt from a research report, or handy checklist that will whet the prospect’s appetite, while at the same time helping to establish you as a credible resource.

Tangible items (things the prospect can feel and touch) work best, and never forget to assign an actual dollar value to your bonus item. The value will reinforce in the reader’s mind that what they’re getting for free is something other people will pay for.

If you decide to test out one or more of these tips in your next campaign, I’d love to hear back from you how they worked. You can reach me at: sanderson@evoicecommunications.com. 

Have a great Memorial Day!

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Continuing with the blog entry I started on April 21st, here are  3 more “How to Invoke Response” tips.

How to Invoke Response Tip #4: Include a P.S.
Believe it or not, studies have shown that the P.S. portion of a message is the most read and recalled.

I understand this can be an especially hard concept to grasp, but here’s a case where I suggest you abandon what you “think you know,” relying instead on the marketing experts who have proven out this theory time and again.

To maximize response, use the P.S. in your promotional copy to reiterate the primary action you want the reader to take.

How to Invoke Response Tip #5: One call to action, please.
We all like options because it allows us to pick what’s “just right” for our situation, but sometimes when we give the reader too many choices, they don’t know which way to turn.
 
When we try to promote too many items within one single message, each item essentially competes for mindshare with the audience. As they dive deeper into their choices, they tend to forget earlier options.

Of course that’s not to say you should never promote more than one item in a message, but in these cases, make sure the list of items share a common thread, e.g. a holiday theme, special discounts for sales/marketing CDs, membership drive, etc.

A second, less obvious problem, can occur even when you’re promoting a single item. In this particular case, we give the reader too many choices (e.g. download this brochure, view this video, try our ROI calculator) that we distract the reader from the real action we want them to take.

Before creating promotional material, ask yourself, ‘What single goal do I want the reader to take?’ If the goal is to get them to “buy now,” everything in your promotional message should drive the reader to that one specific action.

How to Invoke Response Tip #6: Eliminate distractions.
This advice is a slight twist to tip #5.

Let’s say, for example, you’re tasked with promoting a webinar with a featured guest presenter. Your ultimate goal is to get the person to sign up for your event, but in order to do so, you need to sell the reader on the worth of this speaker. Redirecting readers to the presenter’s website might be easy, but what you’re doing is leading people away from your message.

Not the best idea. I prefer to use the copy within my own promotional message to sell the value of the speaker, highlighting what makes this person “the one expert” readers should listen to, and backing up my claims with a list of prior clients and/or a few testimonials. Sometimes I’ll link to a website page which lists testimonials, but more often than not I prefer to embed the testimonials in my own copy.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Getting people to respond to online and offline promotional campaigns can be an exercise in frustration. With prospects constantly bombarded with marketing material, it’s tough to craft a unique message that captures attention and nudges prospects off the fence.

Effective messages are clearly written from the reader’s perspective, but there are a few proven techniques one can employ to help boost response.

Here are  a handful of techniques I personally use to keep the reader engaged and focused on what I want them to do. I’ll cover the first three tips this week. The remaining tips will be covered in upcoming blog entries.

How to Invoke Response Tip #1: Keep it conversational friendly.
This is a hard one for many people because it seems they’re afraid to loosen the reins on their corporate image.

In no way am I suggesting that you let go of common sense, but it wouldn’t hurt to undo the first button on your white shirt.

Try to establish a rapport with your reader with a personal message from you to them. Start with a personalized salutation (Dear <firstname>), use lots of “you” in the body, and finish with electronic signature.

If you’re unsure whether this will work for your audience, use an A/B test to measure results.

How to Invoke Response Tip #2: Draw parallels to your readers’ peers.
Like group counseling, sometimes it helps to know you’re not the only one with a particular problem or need.

When you shine the spotlight on the reader’s peers, it makes them stop and think whether they have the same problem and don’t even realize it.

Here are just a few ways to get your reader to reflect:

• “when I speak with business owners like yourself, they tell me…”
• “80% admit…”
• “ISVs like you secretly wish”

But please, don’t go crazy sprinkling this technique throughout your copy. One mention in the introductory portion of your message is all that’s necessary.

How to Invoke Response Tip #3: Don’t preach.
People don’t respond well to unsolicited advice. Promotional copy that sounds like you’re preaching, or telling them what they should do, is a huge turn-off.

Instead, lead them towards the answer by focusing on their immediate pains, talk about the long-term repercussions of status quo, oroffer up alternate points of view.

All three help your readers draw their own conclusions and drive them to want to take action.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Early on in my writing career, I thought my proofreading was meticulous. I’d read and re-read my material over and over again, because I myself judged others by their writing skills.

The problem was, I relied on my eyes which are super-sensitive to the tiniest of errors in other peoples’ work. However, I quickly learned these same eyes are extremely forgiving when it comes to my own errors, auto-correcting flagrant issues, subtleties the average person would miss, and clumsy sentences that break the natural rhythm in the piece.

A writer whom I have great respect for once recommended that I invest in a software that would read the text back to me, but since my employer was on a very tight budget, I didn’t pursue the idea at first.

Instead, I relied on old-fashioned, unreliable tactics like setting the piece aside for a day before final proofreading, asking others to review my work, re-reading the piece backwards, and the worst of all methods, relying on Microsoft Word’s spell checker.

After several months of doing things the hard way, I decided to see how much a text-to-speech software would put me back. A quick online search turned up an incredibly inexpensive yet powerful software called TextAloud by NextUp.com.

For less than thirty bucks, this nifty software will read e-mail, web pages, reports, and more, aloud on your PC.  You can even save your daily reading to an mp3 or Windows media file for playback on an iPod, PocketPC, or TV using Tivo’s Home Media Option.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I took advantage of their free 15-day trial, using it to review online promotions and articles that were already in their “finished” state.

Needless to say, TextAloud caught at least one error in every single piece. With eyes wide open, I shelled out the money, saving me tons of time and my good reputation.

The default voices that come with the software sound robotic, but if you find that annoying you can download other free voices or upgrade to natural-sounding voices like I did.

Nowadays, every piece I create undergoes the scrutiny of TextAloud and my ears.

If you’re responsible for writing web content or other marketing material, I dare you to try it. If you’re like me, you’ll be humbled by the errors you find.

Let me know if it helps!

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

When I was just starting out, I admit I was taken aback when my first big prospect (who came to me through a referral) called and started his conversation by saying, “Yeah, I was looking at your website…” Fortunately, I had put enough information out there so he could finish his sentence with “…and it looks like you’re right up our alley!” Whew, I thought, as the knot in my stomach started to unwind.

It was at that moment I realized just how important websites are. Even if you’re not interested in generating leads online, prospects will want to check you out before they call, and the way they will “get to know you” is through your website.

Essentially you want prospects to hear these three underlying messages when they visit your site.

#1: I’m Credible
While the mere presence of a website does help establish you as a legitimate business, it does not prove credibility.

Aside from having relevant, useful content on the site, testimonials, success stories, client lists, past projects, and information that demonstrates your industry experience all help plant the seed of trust.

One word of caution though: Testimonials and success stories need to be backed up with real names, including title and company name. If you can’t get a client to go on record with their testimonial, it’s not worth publishing, because prospects (myself included) will view any generic testimonial as fiction, rather than fact.

#2: I’m Different
Why are so many companies stuck regurgitating the same old marketing messages they see on their competitors’ websites? Unless you’re selling a commoditized product, your website should scream, “I’m different!”

How? For starters, stop talking about you, your features, and your benefits.

To differentiate, think (and write) in terms of your customers. State their pain. Give them literature, worksheets, or online calculators that help them quantify the real costs associated with their pains, and the value you’ll bring to their business. Provide a product comparison that isn’t feature-focused. Offer material that helps prospects sell your solution to higher-ups within their organization. And don’t be afraid to go head-to-head with your competition by creating a “Why Us” section that tells prospects exactly where other solutions fall short.

#3: I’m a Real Person
People do business with people, not companies, so don’t hide behind a vague “Contact Us” web page that invites visitors to send an e-mail to a nameless info@companyname.com address.

Create a web page that personally introduces you and your management team to your prospects. Share with them your background, industry experience, and motivations. Let them see what you look like (yes, pictures!), and don’t be afraid to reveal a little personality or share personal interests.

Remember, it was the information on my own “About eVoice” page that got my first big prospect interested in hiring me, and even now, it continues to be one of the most visited pages on my site.

If you keep these three messages in mind when building website content,  you’ll not only stand out from the crowd, you’ll also stand a better chance at winning over the most cynical prospects.

P.S. One final Twitter reminder: If you’re a high-tech firm that has derived tangible business benefits from your Twitter investment, I want to hear from you. Share with me how you’ve worked Twitter into your marketing plan *plus* the specific, measurable results you’ve achieved since its introduction, and in return your company could earn a prominent spot in an upcoming Twitter story I’m writing.

Summarize your real-life Twitter experience in a short e-mail sent to sanderson-at-evoicecommunications.com, and don’t forget to tell me how I can reach you for a follow-up interview.

Thanks in advance for your help and insight.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

A lot of marketers do without even realizing it.

BS Bingo (or as Wikipedia calls it, Buzzword Bingo) is a little game salespeople like to play with our marketing material. To play, all you need is marketing collateral and BS Bingo cards, like the one shown below:

Using the collateral as a traditional bingo cage, each player ticks off a square whenever a word on their BS Bingo card matches a word in the collateral. The first person to complete a row, column, diagonal, or all four squares shouts “Bingo” and the fun begins again with a new piece of collateral.

Now I know this is a silly game that salespeople use to poke fun at marketing folks, but the way I see it we can either ignore their attempts at humor, or use it as an opportunity to improve our copy.

You see, I believe we create a credibility problem whenever we engage in BS Bingo. Maybe it’s our enthusiasm for the product, or maybe it’s because “everybody else does it,” but whatever the reason, high-tech collateral seems to be inundated with fancy buzz words. I’ve even seen some collateral go so far as to string a series of buzz words together like this:

“improved security, reliability, availability, scalability”

As a marketer we think “Wow, this is an impressive list,” but to the reader, it’s the same meaningless dribble they’ve seen time and time again from every competitor.

So how does one avoid BS Bingo and the negative effects it can have on our copy?

The first step towards recovery is recognizing that you have a problem. Try playing BS Bingo with your own collateral. If you win more times than not, you have a problem.

As a next step, ask yourself “So what?” each time you encounter a buzz word. The answers you give will help flush out the real value behind the buzz words, leading you to a fresher, more convincing way to articulate value to your readers.

Of course I’m not bold enough to suggest every buzz word can be stricken from marketing collateral. Sometimes there are very good reasons for using well-known buzz words. But if that’s the case, don’t just rattle them off like you’re an auctioneer. Back up your claims of security, reliability, etc. with some supporting evidence.

Doing so will not only help differentiate you from your competitors; it will make your claims more believable.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

I’m fortunate because as I writer I learn so much from the people I interview. A few weeks back I had the pleasure of speaking with an incredibly down-to-earth CEO for a SoftwareCEO exclusive that’s in the works. Clate Mask runs Infusionsoft, a company that helps small businesses increase sales through automated follow up.

During our interview Clate told me one of his biggest mistakes was not recognizing the value of a good website. Using the Wayback Machine one can follow his company’s evolution from a custom development shop to a software firm who first targeted the mortgage industry before realizing they could go horizontal with their offering.

Clate said he didn’t really understand how much a website said about his company so he didn’t really invest in his site for the first five years.

Many companies, I believe, still think like Clate did, but here’s a few statistics that might make you re-think your strategy:

• A joint study conducted by Enquiro Research and MarketingSherpa revealed that 63.9% of B2B buyers start their search online with general-purpose engines like Google or targeted B2B engines.
• A Forrester Research excerpt published during 2007 reported that 78% of CIOs and IT decision makers rely on websites when making product decisions.

Clate’s website isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t have to be.  What makes his website effective  is content. It’s a leadgen machine that reads like you’re talking to Clate — so much so — that by the time him and I met via phone, I felt like I already knew him.

Online prospects get to know you long before you get to know them, so put your best foot forward. Create content that shows your personality and starts a conversation.

Many B2B sellers tell me their goal is to get prospects to call, but if all you have to offer is another “me too” website filled with marketing buzzwords, what reason have you given them to pick up the phone?

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Following up on the blog entry I started on January 6th, today I’d like to wrap up my e-mail marketing tips with six ideas to help build a loyal e-mail following.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #1: Be practical.
How many times have you read an article in an e-newsletter and thought “OK, now what do I do with this information?” Too many people stay at the 50,000 foot level with their content, which presents an opportunity for the rest of us.

Anybody can say, for example, that it takes great talent to make a great company. Very few actually show us how to find, hire, and retain them. It takes more effort to do, but figuring out how to solve problems and sharing your tips with others via e-mail will make readers clamor for your content… and your business.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #2: Demonstrate leadership.
Another way to build a loyal e-mail following and gain respect is to demonstrate thought leadership through your e-marketing messages.

Provide context around current events. Offer up a different perspective. Or analyze recent trends. Then take your observations one step further and really help your readers with practical tips and advice they can put into practice.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #3: Respect your audience.
Don’t pollute their Inbox with a never-ending supply of gimmicky material. I’ll tolerate one marketing message per week from any given source, but when I start receiving the same (or similar) messages three or four times each week I begin to tune out.

Figure out what’s tolerable for your audience and stick with it. In many cases I would suggest two e-mails per month is sufficient to build a relationship without getting in your reader’s face.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #4: Don’t push your agenda.
Or to be perfectly blunt, don’t sell.

In most cases I believe it’s  unrealistic to think you can convert a B2B prospect into a customer through a series of e-messages.

That’s not to say e-mail doesn’t work to stimulate sign-ups for a webinar, or to promote an upcoming conference or special offer. They work, but I recommend you use them sparingly, and in conjunction with other non-sales messages.

The key is to nurture prospects through e-mail with educational literature, perspective, and practical advice. If they like what they see, they’ll approach you when they’re ready to buy.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #5: Be different.
Even though marketers are taught to differentiate, somehow we all seem to get trapped in messages that are indistinguishable.

Part of this, I think, has to do with how we communicate. One easy way to show you’re different is to reveal some personality in the messages you send.

I’ve seen some e-mail marketers take this to the extreme, sharing their CEO’s weight loss challenges, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

Instead, I suggest you think about your audience as a single person when you’re creating content. By keeping your focus on the person (not the crowd), you’re bound to end up with messages that reveal the real you.

Build a loyal e-mail following tip #6: Test.
I read somewhere (sorry but I can’t recall where) that very few e-mail marketers actually take the time to test. That’s a shame. Yes, testing takes time, but it provides valuable insight into the psyche of your reader.

And if my January 6th assertion rings true this year — e-mail marketing is going to get a whole lot harder during 2009 — testing will be the best way to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.

Marketers: Brace yourself for stiffer competition this year in the e-mail marketing world.

The December 8, 2008 issue of BtoB Magazine confirmed (not surprisingly, I might add) that marketers plan to beef up their e-mail marketing efforts during 2009.

Of the folks surveyed, nearly half (43.5%) say they’re keeping budgets intact, but they’re shifting dollars away from more traditional tactics like print, direct mail, and events. Almost 75% say they’ll increase online spending, and more specifically, 68.3% say they’ll put more money towards e-mail marketing this coming year.

What this means for the average person is a more cluttered Inbox, and as their Inbox grows, they’ll naturally become more aggressive at cleaning out the clutter.

Marketers who want to avoid the trash heap (and who doesn’t have this for a goal?!) will need to step up their efforts to capture the recipient’s attention.

If you’re still sending out e-newsletters with the same bland subject line (e.g. “XYZ Widgets Newsletter: 2009-01-05”), stop! You’re providing zero information that helps your readers make an educated decision on whether to keep your e-mail or toss it.

Here’s four quick tips to help you build attention-grabbing subject lines that will make your readers want to open your e-mail.

Grab your reader’s attention tip #1: Front load your subject lines with powerful words.

While active sentences are easier to absorb, they often times push your most important words to the tail end of the sentence.

When it comes to subject lines, passive sentences  are not tabu. Flip the subject and object around so that key words and phrases are the very first words your reader will see.

Grab your reader’s attention tip #2: Focus on their pains and problems.

Stop talking about you: your newsletter, your weekly summary, your upcoming release, etc., and start demonstrating how you can help your readers with their problems.

And I do mean problems… not opportunities for improvement.

People want to do a lot of things, but they’re more likely to act upon the issues that are hurting them, or causing them great discomfort.

Grab your reader’s attention tip #3: Ask a question.

One way to accomplish this is to ask a question that gets the reader thinking about their pain, e.g.:

• Feel powerless against your larger competitors?
• Are you leaving money on the table?
• How much is your IP worth?
• Confused about…?

You get the idea.

Grab your reader’s attention tip #4: Be specific.

Watered down, vague subject lines will catch nobody.

“7 tips to find profitable partners,” “4-step plan to land enterprise deals,” or “11 common online marketing missteps that waste money” tells the reader exactly what they can expect to find when they open your e-mail.

Note that all three examples use concrete numbers. That’s because people respond to them! One word of caution, though: Don’t try to force your numbers to be nice round numbers like 10. If you have six great tips to help your reader stop wasting money on VAR partners that don’t deliver, don’t pollute the list with another four tips that are marginal at best.

In my next post on January 20th, I’ll share 5 additional e-mail marketing tips.

Sue Anderson
Marketing Lure, Inc.