Marketing "Sin" #5: Trying to be "cool" isn't always cool
Some marketing tries so hard to be cool or cutesy or cryptic, it doesn’t do the one thing marketing is supposed to do: get people to buy.
Example #1:
You get an email titled: “Get ready for the HEAT!” Summer's coming so you assume it’s from a local A/C repair company. And since your A/C is working just fine, you trash the email.
Whoops! The email with the “clever” title was actually about a hot yoga class at the new studio in town, which you would have loved to know about.
Example #2:
You could swear you clicked on the URL for a hair salon. But you’re monitor is showing artsy photos of fine paintings and in old building with elegant architectural flourishes. Thinking a defective link took you to an interior design company, you click away.
Bummer! It actually WAS the website of a salon—a really good one. But the pictures of people with amazing hair? They're buried in one of the website’s pull-down menus.
Trying to be clever confuses customers.
Successful companies don’t fall into this trap.
They know that clarity is the key to being heard above the roar of 33.2 million other small businesses in the U.S.
As Donald Miller, author of the bestselling Building a StoryBrand likes to say, “If you confuse, you lose.”
This means if you’re an accounting firm, the only good reason to show a gorgeous tropical beach on your home page is if you help clients stash money at a bank in the Caymans.
When your business is an iconic global brand, then you can be hip and pay Matthew McConaughey to stand on a glacier and ruminate about the meaning of life. Until then, you’ve got to be crystal clear about what you offer.
Check to see if your marketing is clear.
• Do this experiment: Take your laptop to a coffee shop. Ask a random person (who doesn’t know what business you’re in) to look at the header of your website for seven seconds. Then shut your laptop and ask three questions:
What does my business do?
How do my products/services make people’s lives better?
How would someone get what I offer?
Repeat this test with 2-3 other people.
If your test subjects can’t answer these basic questions, then no matter how "cool" your website looks or sounds, you have a clarity problem. And it's costing you sales!
• One more helpful exercise. Grab one of your recent marketing emails, print ads, or sales letters. Read each sentence and paragraph with “new eyes,” carefully asking one question over and over, “What are all the ways this could be misunderstood?”
Focus on “clear” first. Only then should you think about “clever” and “cool.” That’s the order for marketing that works.
Here's to clarity in your marketing!