A Little Advice From an Apple

I found this quote in an online article from the Wall Street Journal, about the way that Apple does business…

“According to several employees and training manuals, sales associates are taught an unusual sales philosophy: not to sell, but rather to help customers solve problems. "Your job is to understand all of your customers' needs—some of which they may not even realize they have,"

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576364071955678908.html#ixzz1PpRfBKll “

And as it turns out this is not only advice on how you could run your business, but more importantly--- also great advice on how you should create your radio ads.  Stop trying to sell – and simply help your customers solve a problem.  If you can do that, you’ll more than likely achieve the sale as a result.

The problem with most advertising is that it tries to answer questions no one is asking!   By giving the listener the who, what, when and where – when all they really want is an answer to the question “WHY?”   Why should I choose you?  How can you help me?

If you can solve the “why” they’ll give you their attention (and their money).  But drone on endlessly about how many years you’ve been in business, and load your ad with platitudes about your experienced staff and superior selection – they’ll tune you out and go back to whatever it was they were thinking about before your message came on. 

And they’ll do it with lighting speed!

 Thanks to the miracle of the internet and Google searches we’ve all become expertly honed at deciding what we’re interested in and what we’re not.  Give us information we don’t want, or didn’t ask for and we’re gone.  On to the next most interesting thought.  Which is really bad news for you Mr Advertiser.

So stop trying to sell, and stop cramming your ads full of “we-we” (as in we do this and we do that and we’ve been doing it for 35 years…) and figure out how you can solve their problem.   Then package that solution in a straight-forward ad, with some powerful and energetic verbs and you’ll get the listeners attention. 

And these days – that in and of itself is a huge success right there!


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It’s Your Story – So Own It 

How do you differentiate your business in your radio ads?  Listen to most ads and you’d think the secret is to tell everyone how long you’ve been in business, where you’re located and then go on endlessly about how wonderful you and your products are. Oh and if you really want to impress us, throw a list of all the product lines you carry – nothing impresses us more than a list!

Okay, I know what you’re thinking…they’re your ads, you’re paying for them – so you’re going to talk about yourself and your business!  Well, if your business is so successful you can afford to buy ads just to brag, and you don’t need any more customers – then go right ahead.  Now if you are in same boat as the rest of us and you always need new customers -- as a general rule talking about yourself is not a good way to market your business in radio.  Truth is your customers really don’t care about you or your products – unless you or that product can help them solve a problem – they’re stuck in their own heads and their own lives.  So they want to hear about themselves.

But if you’re bound and determined to talk about you – then please don’t fill your ads with boring ad speak, like lists and years in business – tell us a story.  And not just any story – your story! You’ve got a unique one – because only you are you.   So share some of that story with your customers. 

Here’s what I mean – I’ve worked with a very smart business owner who told stories in her ads.  Stories about how she found specific artists she featured in her gallery/store.  Stories that centred around questions her grand kids asked her things she had in her home (the same kind of art she sold in her store).  Stories about special orders she’d done for some of her customers – stories only she could tell, that she could own.  Stories that other customers could remember and comment about.  Stories that told you about who she was, why she did what she did and the passion she had about the products she sold.

Oh, and by the way – these story ads worked very well for her, as they resonated with people who were listening to the radio.

So if you’re going to talk about yourself in your ads, make sure those ads tell your story – go ahead take ownership of the business you own and tell the world about it – but do it in a way that tells us a bit about who you are, and why doing business with you is so special.

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Are Your Ads Trying To Be Everything To Everybody?

In a recent article,

Marketing Beyond Advertising’s Tom Wanek said:

“Powerful marketing messages make a statement  by choosing who to lose. Weak marketing messages attempt to please everyone, and in the end, please no one.”

It’s a pretty common mistake, made in a lot of radio ads.  Trying to say too much in your ads.  And it’s a very easy trap to fall into. 

First of all, you as a business owner, know a lot about your business or service.  You’re proud of it – and you should be – so it’s only natural to want to tell everyone all the things you do.  But here’s something you need to hear – and I’m sorry this is going to sound a bit rough.  Listeners just don’t care.

See everyone is self-centered.  I know we try to claim we’re not, but we’re hard-wired that way.  Self-preservation is one of the most basic of humanity’s driving force.  And I believe that forces us to think about our welfare a lot more often then we consider.  And if that is true, when we’re listening to radio ads we’re trying to gauge how the message we’re hearing is going to impact our lives – in essence “what does this have to do with me”? 

But if you’re not talking to me, because you’ve forgotten that I am indeed an individual, with different immediate wants and needs than everyone else, but you’re still trying to lump me in – well in truth, you’ve lost me (and a lot of others too).

So in actuality, instead of reaching everyone, you reach no-one.  So how do you actually talk directly to those who would be interested in your product?  Eliminate those who wouldn’t be interested! I know you think you don’t want to do this – but you do.  Regardless of what you sell or market, there are just going to be people who are not interested in what you have.  So lose them -- purposely!

How?  Choose one aspect of your business – aimed at a very specific part of your consumer base, and then talk to them exactly as they talk.

That means if they talk about your product using jargon – you should use jargon too.  And don’t worry for a second that it alienates a lot of the people listening, because they were never going to be your customer anyway, and if by some miracle you were to get some of them to come in, they’d only waste your time asking a lot of questions that your targeted customers would never ask.

This is the key to making a powerful, laser-guided ad.  That’s in essence what the quote at the top of this post means. 

So go ahead, say it proud.  Say it powerfully.  And say it in the language your target customer is going to understand.  And lose everyone else. 

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