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We all do it – so why not use it to your advantage?
Did you blow out over Christmas? Wine, beer, sherry, turkey, mince pies, Christmas pudding, cakes, chocolates, and lots of yummy cheese?
If you did, perhaps you’ve blown up too. And you’ve seen the inevitable New Year, new you! headlines in the glossy weekend supplements. So maybe you’re thinking about turning over a new leaf.
And what better way to do it than a detox?
Well here’s a newsflash: detox doesn’t exist.
UK charitable trust Sense About Science recently investigated 15 detox products from bottled water to face scrub. And their conclusions? The detox claims, they said, are “meaningless”.
We’d be better off, according to them, eating healthily and getting a good night’s sleep.
Their claims caused a furious debate. I heard one myself, on BBC radio.
On one side, a spokeswoman for Sense About Science. On the other, a woman who’d been through a five-day detox, and said the results were amazing.
So who’s right?
They both are.
The scientists are right because the science is undeniable. But the detox fans are right because they believe they’re right. They’ve told themselves that detox exists – so it does.
It’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.
Tell (a story), don’t show
We all tell ourselves stories.
I do (I’ve even got some ‘detox tea’ in my cupboard to prove it). You do. Everybody does. It’s part of who we are and how we function.
It’s something Seth Godin explores in his addictive (in a good way) book All Marketers Are Liars. It’s packed full of examples of how we tell ourselves stories about everything. That’s our way of justifying purchases, cutting through the clutter of choice, and making ourselves feel good.
Often, we use stories to deceive ourselves. Here are just a few examples I picked up on recently:
- A woman at my gym who spends £30 an hour (her membership only costs £35 a month) once a week to chat to her personal trainer. She’s told herself she’s working harder, that it’s easier when you’ve got somebody motivating you, that it gives her structure and purpose. But it doesn’t. In six months, to my inexpert eye, she’s lost no weight. If anything, she’s gained weight.
- Two acquaintances of mine who proudly announced that they’re self-diagnosed dyslexics. Their spelling is pretty bad, but it’s easier to blame it on a medical condition than do something about it.
- An art gallery in Melbourne that gushed with enthusiasm over a new artist, until they discovered she was only two years old.
OK, these examples are frivolous, but they prove a serious point.
People aren’t looking for facts. They’re looking for a story. And it’s a hugely powerful marketing tactic you can use to your advantage.
The plot thickens
Let’s be clear here: we’re not talking about deceiving people. If you market something using deceptive practices, you’ll be found out – every time.
Instead, what you need to do is put yourself inside the mind of your potential customer. What stories do they tell themselves? What, in the words of the Wise One (Seth), is their worldview?
Find out that, and you know how to talk to them.
Why do people pay what they do for works of art? An art dealer friend put it very succinctly to me:
“Art isn’t ‘worth’ anything,” she said. “It’s simply an agreed point on a spectrum, usually midway between the buyer and seller.”
In other words, they tell themselves a story. If they didn’t, how would they justify paying (or charging) a fortune for pickled sharks and unmade beds?
Baby on board stickers work because it bypasses the need for speed and appeals to people’s parental instincts. The same goes for safety cameras (the new name for – you guessed it – speed cameras in the UK).
Once you know what’s important to people, you can look at your product or service from their point of view – using their vocabulary and terms of reference.
Or put another way, tell them a story.
So what’s your story?
Find out more:
Find it, position it, sell it
Last year, somebody sent me flowers for my birthday. It was a lovely gesture, but it’s not the flowers that stick in my mind. Instead, it was the way they were delivered.
Not by a surly, shaven-headed driver in a white van. But by a fresh-faced young guy with a broad smile and an unusual mode of transport. For Outspoken Delivery have no vans at all – just a fleet of strange-looking bicycles.
They claim they’re ’100% emission free (excluding a little hot air)’. And one of their testimonials says “Don’t use this business! They’re so good, I want them all for myself”.
How could you not like them?
They may not be the fastest. They may not be the cheapest. But they’re certainly the most different. And that’s why I’d use them.
Wouldn’t you?
Stand out or stand down
We all like to think we’re different. We tell our customers we’re different. We say it so much we actually end up believing it. But we’re often just deluding ourselves and the customer sees right through it.
Being different means really being different. Like woot.com. They sell stuff on the internet. So what?
Well here’s the difference: they sell just one item a day – until midnight, or until their stock runs out.
Today, it might be a vacuum cleaner, tomorrow a USB heated coffee mat. And when the clock strikes twelve, they move on. It doesn’t matter that they could have sold another 500.
When it’s over, it’s over. It’s a silly, irrational, counter-intuitive idea. And it’s wildly popular.
A sideways view
We can’t all turn our business model on its head, or turn to pedal power when it doesn’t make sense. Wacky is good, but only if it makes money.
But we can step back and take a different view.
Tom’s of Maine manufactures toothpaste. So how can they take on the giants of the toothpaste world?
Simple.
By telling a story, and making it personal. Check out their website, and you’ll see no corporate double-speak. Behind Tom’s of Maine is a charming, smiley couple called Tom and Kate.
Their toothpaste isn’t cheaper – in fact, it’s much more expensive. And it’s not everywhere – they sell mainly through health-food stores.
But it’s very, very successful. And from toothpaste they’ve expanded to a whole range of healthcare products.
Different is memorable. Different sells.
Different is what makes the difference.
Find out more:
You’ll be surprised – and so will they
 Just the other day, this leaflet dropped through the letter box. The local council is thinking about installing these gizmos at bus stops around the county.
So while you’re waiting in the rain with a dozen other bedraggled people, you can see that the number 52 is still 15 minutes away.
To help pass the time, you could press the yellow circle to get community information. Or catch up on the latest police notices, the leaflet tells me. How calming.
The important point here is that they’re asking me what I think before they launch the scheme.
Don’t keep it to yourself
It’s very tempting to wait until you’ve got every angle worked out before presenting an idea to your clients.
Why? Because if you don’t, maybe they’ll think you don’t know what you’re doing. Or worse, that you’re making it up as you go along.
But wait – you are making it up as you go along. With their input.
Many years ago, when I worked for a large software company, we launched a reseller incentive. If salespeople sold X, they got £Y.
But in our enthusiasm, we forgot to consult the resellers on the exact details. And it turned out that our incentive scheme clashed with their internal commission structure and the distributor incentive schemes.
It wasn’t a success.
So the next time round, we brought them all together and got their help to design a scheme that worked for everybody.
Open kimono
Involving clients in important decisions and getting their feedback on your future plans is a great way to make them feel valued. And it saves you the head-scratching frustration of wondering whether you’ve got it right.
But if you are going to ask, make sure you’re doing it for that right reasons – and that you’re approaching it with an open mind.
Somehow, I think the council has already made its mind up about the bus signs. The clue is on the reverse side, where the languge is relentlessly positive:
“Constantly striving to improve…brand-new…always current and up to date…wide variety…match all bus users’ needs…”
After all that, who would dare to tick the ‘No’ box?
Apart from me, that is.
 Imagine an email to your best friend telling them what you did last weekend.
Now imagine a letter to a prospective client telling them why your service means you stand head and shoulders above the competition.
What did you imagine?
The email was probably informal, slangy, friendly, direct and fun. You may have been a bit lax with punctuation. Perhaps you used lots of exclamation marks, and a few smiley faces. You just wrote without getting too hung up on the details.
And the letter? You probably stiffened in your seat even as you imagined it. Perhaps you used the phrases ‘we pride ourselves on…’ or ‘it is our firm belief.’ You may even have described yourself as ‘we’, even if it’s just you. And you may have used some long words because they sound more…
More what? More businesslike? More formal? Or more distant, cold, and impersonal?
Next time you write a piece of business communication, try these tips. They’ll help you create a more friendly ‘register’ – the word linguists use to describe levels of language.
Active, not passive
Don’t say your order will be delivered, say we’ll deliver your order. Don’t say you’ll be contacted by our customer-service department, say our customer-service department will contact you.
See the difference? The active voice (we will deliver) creates a direct link with the reader. The passive voice (will be delivered) puts distance between you and the reader
Which would you prefer?
Short, not long
If you want to sound customer-friendly, use short words and sentences. In English, we’re lucky to have the choice between words with Anglo-Saxon roots (ask, send, put) and Latin roots (request, transmit, place).
In almost every instance, Anglo-Saxon words are more informal. So instead of saying we request your presence imminently, say we’d like to see you soon.
Here’s a great tip: write as you speak. If you wouldn’t say it when talking to somebody, don’t say it when you write.
If you find it difficult to work out whether you’d say it when talking, try reading what you’ve written aloud. You’ll soon see whether it sounds natural or not.
Use contractions
Don’t say we shall be in contact, say we’ll be in contact. Or better still, dust off your Anglo-Saxon and say we’ll be in touch.
Try contractions (I’ll, you’re, he’s, they’re, it’s) whenever you can. It radically changes the tone of a piece, instantly making it sound less formal.
A word of warning, though: when you use contractions, watch out for the it’s/its trap. Remember, it’s means it is, but its means of it.
Now let’s rewrite that letter…
Products, positioning and the art of segmentation
A couple of months ago, I decided it was time to upgrade my mobile phone. Not just the phone, but the contract – an all-singing, all-dancing service, with web browsing, instant email and WiFi.
Never go shopping with a copywriter. Years ago, I went to to see a play with a friend who was involved with the theatre. All through the show, he commented on the lighting, the staging, the acting and the direction.
It was a long evening.
For a copywriter, shopping is a bit of a busman’s holiday. What’s on offer? What are they really selling? How is it being positioned? Are the comparisons fair? Is it being oversold? What’s the imagery doing? How is it working with the copy?
It’s a verbal assault course. But it’s fascinating to see how different companies talk about their products and services.
Take Virgin Mobile. They’re clearly not aiming at the business market. Or anybody over the age of 30.
There are kids in hoodies and cool dudes in wraparound sunglasses. The stress is on fashion, not function. And the language is funky: ‘These charges kick in’, ‘A fantastic deal, straight up’, ‘buy online and save a packet’.
You could argue that they’re alienating a big chunk of the market. But they’re cleverer than that. By not trying to be all things to all people, they’re making themselves the irresistible choice for their target customers.
My virtual window-shopping took me to all the UK mobile phone providers. And I got some fascinating insights, which apply to copywriting as much as marketing:
- Choice isn’t always good – especially if there’s too much. The tariffs weren’t clearly explained or positioned. I could see where I was being led (an extra fiver for three times the minutes, a 18-month contract, web services) but couldn’t decide which path to take.
- Consistency is important. Vodafone told me I could use my text allowance for data transfer when I was browsing the web. Then they told me I couldn’t. T-Mobile told me that they didn’t feature all their phones on the busiess section of the site – I had to look in the personal section. Even then, they said, the list was still incomplete.
- Language matters. You’d expect a copywriter to say that, wouldn’t you? But it’s not just the written word. A T-Mobile new business advisor called me ‘mate’ twice during our conversation. His Vodafone counterpart said ‘Hang on a second, Kev. I’ll put you on hold, but don’t worry – there won’t be any cheesy hold music.’ (Instead, I got silence for two minutes and thought I’d been cut off.)
- Cleverness doesn’t always work. Orange’s personal tariffs are called Dolphin, Raccoon, Canary and Panther. The names are supposed to reflect callers’ behaviour (heavy texters, mainly landline calls, calls to other Orange mobiles and so on). But their silliness would put me off taking out a contract. Who wants to be a raccoon?
None of these things are serious in themselves. But collectively, they create a bad impression.
So what’s the solution? Well how about websites that are updated regularly, offers that are clearly positioned, FAQs that actually answer frequently asked questions (not just the ones they think customers are asking), ‘cheat sheets’ to give call-centre operators an at-a-glance guide, and even scripts to help them deal with customers?
It’s a tall order, but it would transform the customer experience. And it might actually help me to make a choice (sad, isn’t it?).
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