Your marketing must stand out
from the category. In other words,
look at what most other speakers/
consultants/authors do, and don’t do
what they do. Hint: Have you ever
seen a one-sheet with a postage stamp-size picture of the speaker?
2. intriGue And involvement
When you watch TV, notice how long
it takes you to identify the advertiser.
Sometimes it’s not until the last few
seconds, and it’s almost always a powerful device. It’s called the “power of
the reveal,” and its power lies in creating intrigue. The mind is a curious thing,
and it demands satisfaction. You will stay
with a message longer if you are trying to
guess the answer, or solve the riddle, or
wait for the punch line.
Predictability is your enemy. “Oh,
another leadership speaker” versus
“What the heck do they mean by that?”
This is why the title of your program, or
worse—your name—rarely makes a good
headline, and why your logo should not
be the focal point of anything except
your business card.
3. emotion
Your marketing should not show an
emotion. It should make people feel
one. When you watch commercials, do
you smile, chuckle, guffaw, gasp, wince
or even choke up? Good. During the
2008 Super Bowl®, some level of humor
was featured in 83 percent of the ads,
according to The New York Times. When
marketing makes an emotional connection, it humanizes a company and makes
it (and you) more approachable. Think
dialogue, not monologue.
4. BrinG the BeneFit to liFe
Speakers love to explain and describe
who they are, what they do and how
it changes people’s lives/behavior/atti-tude/whatever. Why is any or all of that
important to the prospect? What is the
need or the want that is satisfied by the
voodoo you do? Answer those questions,
but don’t just talk about the answers,
bring them to life.
Remember the “Got Milk” commercials? (Not the mustache ones.)
For 13 years, the California Fluid Milk
Advisory Board tried to convince people
to drink milk, describing the nutrients
and telling people “Milk does a body
good.” The message was all about why
you should drink milk, and milk sales
declined an average of two percent per
year for 13 years.
In 1994, when the new message
focused on why you love to drink
milk—because you just can’t eat certain
foods without it—it truly brought the
benefit to life. The message reversed
the decline in sales to the tune of $100
million incremental sales the first year.
The product, the price and distribu-
tion system didn’t change—only the
message. Instead of telling you that
milk tastes good, it made you thirsty.
Terri Langhans, CSP, is the former CEO of a national ad agency and marketing firm that won the American Marketing
Association’s EFFIE award for the most
effective campaign in the country, as
well as the CLEO and a New York Film
Festival Award for TV commercials. She
is the author of The 7 Marketing
Mistakes Every Business Makes (And
How to Fix Them) and COE (Chief of
Everything) at Blah Blah Blah. Visit
www.BlahBlahBlah.us or
www.MaverickMarketing.com.
