It’s all about…THEM

You’ve all heard people (somewhat) jokingly say “It’s all about me.” And truth be told, even the best of us can sometimes feel and act that way, if only unconsciously.

The business version of this would be “It’s all about us.” And unfortunately, many companies tend to behave that way most of the time, despite mission statements that describe how customer-centric they want to be.

This is both understandable and regrettable.

Understandable because the most important thing to a company is naturally its own survival.

Regrettable because the company’s best chance of survival is to focus on what the customer wants, not what the company wants.

Let’s focus on sales messages. During a recent American Marketing Association meeting Bob Gilbreath (CMO of Bridge Worldwide) talked about three levels of customer needs.

--The most basic is solutions: communicating valuable information, incentives, and answers.
--Next is connections: providing useful or entertaining experiences that can be shared with others.
--And at the top of the needs pyramid is achievement: things that someone can use to improve themselves, their family and friends, or the world.

Note that nowhere in this list of needs is

“know about company XXX”
or
“know about company XXX’s product(s)”

Yet that information usually makes up the bulk of the communications we send to our customers and prospects. So why should we be surprised and disappointed that 15% is considered a typical “open” rate for emails, people fast forward through our TV commercials, and 1% a great response rate for direct mail?

Here's the point: people will only pay attention to messages they think THEY will get value from.

Before you can get prospective customers to listen to you, you have to get inside their heads! You have to break free of the 20th century mindset of talking about yourself (ie. your company) under the mistaken impression that people care. Instead, you need to identify your target market(s), zero in on what THEY care about, and customize your messages to their interests and needs.

Your message content is the key! The only way to get your message read or listened to is to tailor it to one of Bob's three levels of needs. Do it often enough, and well enough, and those open and response rates will start going up.

I don’t have the room here to give you examples of how to do that-- but I’d be happy to provide as many as you like over a cup of coffee some time. I’ll even buy. Give me a call!