There is a great test of how effective your initial marketing message is being received. As we have discussed before, the key to establishing interest in prospects is engaging the emotional “stuff” they are dealing with. How do you do that? By tailoring your message to the pain they are suffering and/or a problem they want solving.

Engaging interest is vital!

How will you know when you have mentioned something that resonates with your prospect? They will ask you to elaborate, ask you “How do you do that?” or something similar. The response you don’t want is a blank look or worse, a vague: “Hmmm. Interesting.”

The “so what test”

The next time you go to a networking meeting, listen to what people are saying. Process the message in terms of the emotion that it generates in you. If not emotion, then a genuine feeling that you want to know more. You probably won’t want to ask this directly since it is rather abrupt, but ask yourself if “So what?” is an appropriate question.

For example: “We have been in business for 25 years” - So what?

“We have won numerous customer service awards” - So what?

See how it works? The so what question seems very valid. Specifically it is appropriate because it means, so how does that apply to me? Is it so appropriate as a response to the following statement: “We help small businesses owners frustrated that they are paying too much in personal income tax”.

Again, it is about them

Whilst you can still answer “so what?” I submit that it is far less likely. It is clear who the message is intended for, what pain (frustration) they are suffering and for what reason. The fact that the message includes “help” implies action and begs the question: “How do you help them?” Now you are into a meaningful conversation (at least potentially!)

The key thing is figuring out the pain, frustration, emotion that your prospects are feeling. Here’s a clue to how to figure that out if you don’t know - ask your clients how you help them and what RESULTS you have achieved with them.

Try the “so what?” test on your marketing message. How is it working for you?

We all need a website, right? However what is the typical web experience?

I came across a great article on Marketing profs discussing designing a website to put the customer in charge of the experience. Well, that sounds obvious doesn’t it? As a surfer or a prospect it would seem logical that you are in control of what you do and where you go. However is that really the case?

How often do websites suffer from the same problem that afflicts many of us when we are selling or marketing face to face - namely: too much telling. In the web context this is about a home page that is all “About Us” or “our services” or even the better, but still self serving, “Things our customes say about us”.

How about me? What are my issues as a prospect? Buried in the message somewhere may be what you can do for me specifically. How you help my pain, but I am not honestly going to bother to search for it.

You can see the marketing prof article here which talks about some of the more technical ways to design a customer friendly website. In my view the initial impact must be about the customer and their experiences directly - telling customer stories (generic if you don’t want to be specific) is a great place to start. The source of these? Yes! Your most satisfied customers.