Archive for BE the Change
Do Your Marketing Messages Really Connect with Your Customers, in a Way They Can Feel?
It’s no secret to anyone that we’re living in a BAD U.S. economy. And I’m sure that most businesses recognize they have to communicate with their customers or prospects differently.
Are you acutely aware of how to craft your marketing messages, in order to show your audience/s that you DO understand what’s changed in their lives over the past 18 months or so?
It seems pretty apparent, even in some ‘affluent’ circles that folks are tightening their financial belts, right? So, when times are hard for so many, they respond quite differently to your messages than they used to.
For instance, most everyone is more cautious nowadays — they want to be SURE they’re dealing with someone trustworthy. So BE that.
Also, consumers must be more ‘quality-focused,’ because they want to buy things that will last longer. BE quality.
Millions of Americans are focused on necessities now and foregoing the luxuries. So what do you do, as a marketer, if your products or services are things that most people CAN do without?
Hard question, isn’t it? But, maybe you’ll want to beef up your guarantee. Or, you could give more than you used to. Maybe do some 2 for 1 offers, if it fits your business model.
Showing your clients, customers or prospects you care, by asking their opinions, and really listening, is another great way to connect with them on an emotional level they can feel.
Everyone wants to feel understood. But, now more than ever, it’s imperative to show your audience you understand and are sympathetic to their challenges — and you’re doing something about it, if at all possible!
Let’s all BE the Change we want to SEE in the world.
Carolyn
Do You Know Your Customers’ “WHY”?
Do you, as a marketer, take time to find out what’s important to your customers or prospective customers?
Do you know their ‘why’?
Why do they do what they do?
Why do they think what they think?
Why do they feel the way they feel?
I think today, more than ever before, marketers must take care to learn AS much about their customers as possible … and address their needs and wants in a way they can see that you care about them, as people.
Just because you may have the latest and greatest widget, in your opinion, because it does so many more things than your closest competitor’s widget, doesn’t prove people will want yours more than your competitor’s.
The reason may be they believe all the bells and whistles on your newest widget just get in their way — they’re more of a nuisance than a help. Or, maybe they think (right or wrong) that the more gadgets on the widget, the more there is to go wrong!
You needed to have discovered what else they wanted in a new widget BEFORE trying to tell them how much they should want/need it, right?
Times are a changin’ with the advent of social media, depressed economy and a return to basics. So now, people are driving the market, instead of the market driving the people. That’s old school.
It’s imperative to ask your customers/prospects what they want and why it’s important to them. Very BIG companies, like ‘Big Blue,’ go down with a BIG thud, giving way to a company (like Dell), who gives the people what they want when they want it.
All of your marketing communications, your advertising and your social media presence need to have an ‘ask, not tell’ tenor to them. You need to listen to their needs and discover their ‘why,’ to be successful.
One way to do this is to create a two-way forum on your web site. They ask, you deliver. People will tell you what they think — just ask them!
Maybe a contest? That’s also a great way to get folks to participate in giving you information about why they want what they want.
Figure out what makes them tick — and satisfy their reason for wanting what they want.
Find out their ‘why.’
To making a difference,
Carolyn Permentier
Word of Mouth Marketing is Still a WOW!
Q: Who are the best customers?
A: Referrals.
Q: What’s the best form of marketing?
A: Word of Mouth. (WOM)
So, if everybody knows referrals make the best customers and the way to get referrals is through WOM marketing — what are you doing to generate more WOM?
Have you considered what you can do for your existing customers that would absolutely compel them to tell all their friends and family to buy from you? Something that’s so unique and memorable they’d just have to talk about it?
Consider Disneyland and Disney World. When first time visitors are asked what sticks in their minds most, they say it’s the parks’ cleanliness and the authentic environments.
As Dan Kennedy points out, the marketers know that ‘clean’ is not just about maintenance crews — it’s also about good marketing!
Your customers want to feel really GOOD about doing business with you, right? So, come up with something quirky or unusual to do for them … surprise them in some way they won’t expect.
Going the extra mile works for personal relationships and also for business relationships.
If you can’t think of something that feels right for your business, maybe you could hire a very savvy, creative marketing firm to help you. But just DO it.
Here’s to creating more WOM … and use the ‘WOW’ factor!
Carolyn
Master Artist of Genuine, Inspired Communications
This Copywriter’s POV: Today’s the Time to Stand Up for Right
Did you see the deplorable ‘presidential’ debate on ABC last week? Have you seen the fallout?
Maybe you don’t think ABC’s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos acted more like lame ducks than respected TV news journalists … but I found it deplorable!
With our nation in dire need of new leadership, due to the mess our current illustrous leaders have gotten us into, and for the billionth debate … shouldn’t they at least attempt to get Clinton and Obama to talk about something more important than a lapel pin?
As I sat stunned on my couch, I was hoping against hope that Obama would stand up for right … and refuse to wallow in the pettiness of such idiotic questioning.
But he didn’t.
Was it political correctness or the response of a genuine gentleman?
In Denny Hatch’s, Business Common Sense, he captured my sentiments exactly. To Mr. Gibson’s question about the lapel pin, Barack Obama replied …
SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, I revere the American flag, and I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country. This is—I would not be standing here if it wasn’t for this country.And I’ve said this—again, there’s no other country in which my story is even possible; somebody who was born to a teenage mom, raised by a single mother and grandparents from small towns in Kansas, you know, who was able to get an education, blah, blah, blah …Among Barack Obama’s many attributes is that he is a gentleman.I was not in the mood for a gentlemanly rejoinder. I cringed with embarrassment at the question and Obama’s failure to serve a high hard one back into ABC’s court.
The Exchange I was Hoping for
SEN. OBAMA: Excuse me, Mr. Gibson. Are you going to also ask Senator Clinton why she does not wear an American flag pin on her lapel? Or around her neck? Or in her hair?
MR. GIBSON: Uh …
SEN. OBAMA: Because, Mr. Gibson, people are dying all over the world in wars and acts of violence. The price of food is skyrocketing and millions are starving in Haiti, in Africa and places in between.
MR. GIBSON: Senator Obama …
SEN. OBAMA: Let me finish. Forty-seven million Americans have no health insurance. We are involved in two endless, unwinnable wars that are costing over $20 billion a month—wars that are bankrupting our military, our country, and our children and grandchildren.
In the city of Philadelphia, where we are right now, more than one person every day is murdered. Every month, thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring unchecked into the country, bringing with them drugs and crime.
The Middle East is turning into a vast cauldron of sectarian violence, and the United States is regarded as a pariah all over the world as the invader and occupier of a Muslim nation. The price of oil is $110 a barrel and rising.
These are just some of the huge issues facing the next president of the United States, and you have reduced them to a quarter-inch-square piece of jewelry that you claim is missing from my lapel.
And, the story continues on the next page, getting even better!
Personally, I’m an Independent. But, so what? I still don’t have anyone to vote for out of all 3 of the candidates. And I know I’m not the only one, who feels this way!
With America teetering on the brink of too many disasters to even list … why can’t someone step up to the plate of ‘right’ and tell it like it is!
I fear, with all of my heart, that we could very well be on the verge of a revolt. When the people do not have sufficient leadership in Washington to run the country for the good of the country (middle class?), but rather sell-out our country to special interests, other countries and wage war under the guise of ‘freeing another country’ (after WMD didn’t work) …
a revolution may soon be the only answer.
How applicable might these immortal words, of Thomas Jefferson in 1787, be today, I wonder?
“What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? … The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
There may not be a helluva lot we, as individuals, can do about this runaway train, headed for disaster right now. But, in our own lives, as mothers, fathers, sons, daughters … at school and in our work with each other and our customers … let’s stand for right every chance we get.
In business, let your word be your bond. Let your marketing messages be transparent, without hidden traps that set out to trick, rather than honestly communicate your sales/marketing message.
I think when we stand up for the little things, they’ll accrue to the bigger things.
And, if your marketing calls for a “higher octave” copywriter, I know where you can find one! 
Standing up,
Carolyn
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
A Copywriter’s Thought: Do You ‘Think’ Too Much in Your Marketing?
If you haven’t bought Eckart Tolle’s new book, “A New Earth,” you’re missing the most valuable piece of writing to come along for a long time.
Mr. Tolle, and his new book, has turned into an “Oprah World-wide Webinar. It’s attracting millions of people around the world … live every Monday night.
His other book, “The Power of Now,” was a New York Times Best Seller.
To fully understand where I’m coming from, you’ll need to consume the book, like a ravenous lamb. It IS life-altering. It embodies the highest truth available to us all.
That truth is that we already ARE that which we seek. There really is nowhere to go outside ourselves to find it. That “it” is the truth of our own identity.
It is found, without seeking. It’s as near to us as our next breath. It is beyond thought. In fact, the very act of thinking is what separates us from a direct experience with this IT.
He expresses thoughts or the mind as many spiritual teachers have done, throughout the ages, as EGO.
For today, to attempt to focus on a take-away-lesson to be applied to our business lives and, more specifically, to our marketing, here’s the question …
Do you think too much about your marketing, instead of ‘allowing’ the way to just bubble up for you?
That bubbling up is the inspiration or direction that comes from a much deeper, more dependable place (awareness/consciousness) than from thought. (mind)
This may sound quite contrary to many people, but I know many others will ‘get it.’
Many others are getting it around the world. And, to the extent to which we use this amazing principal in our marketing efforts, the efforting will actually disappear.
What do I mean by that?
I mean there is a higher/deeper intelligence available to us, when we get out of our own way … out of our egoic minds.
Being in a state of ‘no-mind,’ one can tap into (connect) an intelligence that is running the show. We, also, are that same intelligence; but rarely recognize it.
As you can imagine, when you are able to access infinite intelligence, it’s no longer you (ego’s idea of you), but the information is coming from a very BIG source, through you.
It doesn’t matter whether you call it Source, God, Atma, Alla, Jehovah, The All That Is, Divine Energy, Infinite Intelligence, etc. It’s all the same.
It is beyond thought. It’s just the “Is-ness.”
I’m suggesting to you today that each of us is able to tap into this intelligence, but without the vehicle of thought. In fact, you can’t get there from here! (Using thought.)
OK, you may be saying, “How do I do that and what does it give me?”
Good questions.
The simple answers are:
1. How do I do this? You do it thru by-passing the mind/thought and by being awake, aware and open to the answers from the depths of your being.
2. What does it give me? It gives you answers that your mind could not find. They’re dependable, because they come from the unfiltered, direct repository of truth.
Because this repository of truth is the same for everyone, you don’t have to wonder if you can trust it or not.
Assuming, of course, that your business actually does provide a beneficial product or service, then you need only to genuinely and authentically ASK to know what it is, exactly, that your prospective customers want from a product or service like yours.
This is like tapping into an inner gold mine of revelation. The long-awaited gems are right there for the taking/embracing. They aren’t even outside of you … they’re right there, inside your very being.
The answers to your marketing questions are ever-present … hiding in plain sight, when you know where to look.
Ask your inner guidance this question: What do I really need to know, do or be for my customers to respond to me?
EXPECT the answers. And they will come.
Don’t force the answers. Don’t think and logically predict the answers because the mind is too slow, too dense, too filtered to ‘get it.’
If this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t feel bad. It’s a little esoteric to some, but becoming more mainstream as a result of those like Eckhart Tolle and his forerunners, like Jesus, Buddah, et al.
Said another way, don’t force-feed your prospects or customers what you ‘think’ they want or need. Connect with them, genuinely, and sense what they want/need.
May I humbly suggest that if you’re open to knowing more about how to be one of the quiet leaders in this “forward-non-thinking marketing mode” … find a marketing person, who is practicing these concepts in his/her everyday life-work.
Marketing, advertising and the copywriting that gives it a voice has always strived to touch the heart-strings of the people they seek to sell to.
But from my marketing/copywriting experience, there’s always a hint, if not a heavy handed, mind-manipulation. This has never sat right with me and still doesn’t to this day, even though I’ve fallen prey to it as well.
In light of higher truths of who we are … that being the same as everyone else … I feel there is a higher ground presenting itself that we, as marketers, can embrace.
Higher Octave Marketing … are you open to operating from a higher, more conscious and all-embracing state of being in your personal, business and marketing lives?
I sense this is the time for business, as well as personal lives, to transform and transcend mind-based (egoic) behavior.
Will you join that leadership? (See Co-Conspirators, a mastermind group.)
Will you grow your business, by feeding your customers what they genuinely want & need – rather than trying to convince them they want something just because you have it to sell? Just do the right thing for the benefit of your customers.
Will you vow to discover their real wants/needs from the inside out, (their perspective)rather than from your mind-focused, external place?
If, indeed, we’re all ONE … then, doing bad things to each other actually hurts the perpetrator of harm as well as the harmed. We’re all familiar with the old refrain, “what goes around comes around.” It’s true.
For enlightened business, marketing and copywriting, let us all commit to a Higher Octave, in our dealings with self and other?
Yours in higher octave marketing,
Carolyn
The KickAss Copywriter
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
