Most businesses do not realise how off-target their newsletter and magazine communications are.
As normal, I'll explain through a story. Several years ago I was engaged to do a business growth presentation at the conference of the Institute of Mercantile Agents of Australasia. Debt collectors, private detectives, repossession agents ...
To better understand how I could assist, I telephoned one of their clients, the head of collections for an Australasian bank.
"What do you read for business?" was my question. The response would help me recommend topics that the IMAA members should be talking about or sending to all their clients and prospective clients.
You would expect her interests to include how to reduce debt owed, how to speed up collections. The cost of money. How to conduct better credit checks. The Mercantile Gazette. In other words, content revolving around improving collections.
However, her answer was not what you would expect.
She replied "Debbie, collections are a piece of cake. I don't care. My staff handle that. My job is leading and managing a large team. So I read about KPIs [key performance indicators]. I read articles about management. I read about training, how to help staff handle difficult people on the phone." I then asked what she did when she found interesting articles. "I circulate them to all my peers throughout the industry of course," was her reply.
What is the message here?
* What content are you putting in your company newsletter or magazines? Have you stepped into the shoes of your audience and thought of them as individuals?
* Are you adding content that helps them to be more successful in the roles they play, and with their interests and problems?
* Are your communications only about you? Your products/services? Buying more from you? What are you putting in to strengthen relationships?
* Can you target by job? By industry? By special interests even though it has nothing to do with you?
* If you know this client is interested in hockey, that client in soccer and another has a child on the national schools rowing team - have you written it down in your database where you can sort, merge it or is it still in your head?
This is precisely what I mean about targeting. Your audience will find much more value in your communications if, in addition to industry or occupation information, you think of them as people. Mothers. Fathers. Aunts.
Would you like to know the one article that - hands down - has generated the very best response (from 1999 to this day) from my monthly online newsletter?
Judging in terms of people clicking through, goodwill plus a massive amount of new subscribers? It was a short article which offered our children's rotating job chart and the suggestion that the jobs can be substituted for ones around the office. To this day people still talk to me about the job chart.
"But Debbie, you run a business newsletter. Why would you put a children's job chart in it?" you're probably thinking. Ah yes, but almost every single person that reads my newsletter, from CEO down to personal assistant, will have children or be related to some or have friends with them.
As you know, most individuals receive way too much information now and can barely absorb what they have. If you're not going to be relevant, then why should they give you their time?
This month I ran 14 database marketing workshops in New Zealand and Australia with over 400 different companies represented. Barely a soul had thought of this factor of targeting and taking a more rounded content approach.
In fact I felt like banging my head against the wall when one woman, a real estate agent, after 3 hours in the workshop proudly showed me her newsletter. "Look Debbie, I'm doing everything you said." Her two-sided newsletter had nine articles. Three were properties for sale. All the others were centring around selling a home: the need to advertise, auction vs tender, where to advertise, how to make your house more attractive ...
The secret is, people don't care about you. They care about themselves. They care about their world, which consists of their family and their work. Why not take a moment now and re-read your last marketing communications - brochure, newsletter, sales presentation. How much of the content is focused on making the reader more successful in different ways? How many "I's", and "we's" do you have? How much was written from your perspective rather than what they'll get from it?
In closing, think about your client cycle. Before they first "buy", they are HOT. Immediately after they go quite COLD (in terms of demand). You must have a strategy that keeps a dialogue flowing until they move from COLD to WARM and then back to HOT and are ready to do business with you again or refer you to a colleague.
Debbie Mayo-Smith is a best-selling author and international speaker. website for Motivational Speaker Author Debbie Mayo-Smith
