Does your marketing assume EVERYONE knows what you do?
Author
Category
Date
Does your marketing assume EVERYONE knows what you do?
I recently registered for a free mini email course on using herbs. It was being promoted by a mailing list I’m on, and it looked kind of interesting.
It’s likely a familar scenario – you read an interesting article, and it resonates with you. At its end is an offer to test-drive something a bit more in-depth, usually a free mini course or ebook. And if presented well, you might even buy their complete course, book or membership.
But when test-driving, we’re still only seeing if we like what’s on offer, who it’s being offered by and whether we deem it valuable enough to upgrade to a paid product.
We’re usually not yet interested enough to sign-up for the full course or membership subscription – mostly because we are yet to trust the source or subject as an authority in whatever they do.
Or maybe we have no idea about the work on offer, and we’re just mildly curious because we’ve heard about it.
My point is, the ‘maybes’ here are endless.
In my instance, the first email in the free series arrived in my Inbox, and I opened it to read:
‘It’s one of those things that literally makes people cry in my classes when they finally realise it…’
I actually see a lot of opening lines in marketing emails that make a similar mistake:
The writer assumes I have ANY idea what on earth they are talking about!
An opening line like this is about as useful as having a stranger randomly walk up to you in the street, tell you in one sentence how much they love a particular movie, and then walk away without telling you the movie title so you can watch it for yourself!
It’s important to keep in mind that before reading this line, I had NO idea of the exact work this person does, what content they teach, and how they present it.
I hadn’t seen them speak, I’d only ever read one article by them, and I didn’t even know if I liked them yet.
But the email assumed I was going to be so curious about what would make people cry in their classes, that I’d keep right on reading based on that line alone.
I wasn’t.
And if you’re anything like me and your email inbox fills up every morning with hundreds of emails, then you are likely also reluctant to work hard at interpreting anything optional.
So back to the email, and it went on to then share some sporadic lines about plants being aware of our presence, the Earth being involved in the process of herbalism, and life not being random.
Now I’m a keen student of the natural world and natural therapies, and none of this seemed odd to me to read nor new. But I STILL didn’t know what the mini email course was about and what it was going to cover, and sadly by that time I’d lost interest and I actually quickly unsubscribed.
Before you think that I might be particularly impatient or harsh in my judgement, it’s actually a well-known statistic that you literally have under a minute to get any reader’s attention to keep them on your website, email or social media page.
So you need to use that time wisely.
It’s possible I might have really loved that person’s work. It’s even possible I might have been interested enough to buy the entire course once I finished the mini-course.
But I just didn’t have time to spend getting clear on what’s being offered and I’ve read dozens of descriptions similar to what I had read in that email – all vague, hyped-up, new-age-y, definitely unclear, and ultimately, unappealing.
This is the biggest ‘Achilles’ Heel’ most ethical businesses face: if I visited your website or read some of your work, is it clear what exactly you offer?
Does your website explain really well what you do? Especially for someone who has never even heard of whatever it is you do?
And most importantly, what makes what you offer different from others in your field?
My personal litmus test is this – if I were interested in your work, would I be able to explain to a friend in a couple of sentences exactly what you do, what makes you different and what sort of client your services would be valuable to?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of the above questions, your homework is to get crystal-clear on your point-of-view and unique selling point BEFORE you construct any new marketing materials or build your website.
Because if you aren’t clear, your audience won’t be either, and your resulting ethical online small business marketing – no matter how amazing it looks – will miss its mark.
Need a professional guiding hand?
Hi, I'm Clare
Ethical small business website designer, copywriter, copyeditor & content creator.
Subscribe For More Articles
Affiliate link
Affiliate link
Affiliate link
Affiliate link
