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Are you making it personal?

A while back I was reviewing an advertising mailer that a guy I know was sending out. (Ok, it wasn’t that he had ASKED me to review it, that part just comes naturally when looking at ads!)

There was a picture of the owner leaning up against his tractor.

Appalachian Dirt Works

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the caption? “A quality job is our guarantee”.

I saw it and thought…”now that looks nice…here is a pretty people-friendly guy, reaching out on a personal level, to make a face-to-face connection with a potential customer”.

But what was glaring to me was the caption. He spent the money to have his picture made, and put on this mailer. His image…his repuation are put on the line for each job. So I changed one word.

The new caption reads: “A quality job is my guarantee”

See the difference? In fact, you can almost hear the guy’s voice saying it now, even if you’ve never heard him speak before!

So what about you? Does your business operate on a very personal, one-to-one level? If so, are your customer interactions taylored to build that personality? Or are you building a large, “corporate” image, while your interactions…the core of you, are really at a personal level?

It’s ok to seem larger than you are. Unless you’re marketing yourself!


“The way car buying should be”?…

Seen an ad for CarMax lately? You know, the nations largest retailer of new cars?

So I saw an ad recently that was speaking to their 125 point inspection. In fact, they say it’s 12 hours of inspections per car! They showed a clean cut technician, in a super clean shop, inspecting a vehicle.

But here are some thoughts.

Showing the technicians inspecting the car isn’t impressive. Anyone can do that. And besides, there was nothing in the ad that let me know they would repair, tune up, or fix a car. Anyone can inspect it, but did they fix it? Now, showing the technician REJECTING a car? THAT would be powerful. To show me that you don’t just let anything through the door and onto the lot. The guy buffing the car? I thought “yeah, I wonder what else they cover up?”

You told me about quality, but you didn’t SHOW me quality. Show me, instead of uing the word. I didn’t understand that you stand behind any car you sell. I didn’t understand that not everything get’s through. And I didn’t understand what “quality” meant. Did it mean that you have clean shops? That your techs can really look at a car? That they know how to wear blue shirts?

SHOW me what quality is, and how it will make a difference in my car-buying experience. EVERYONE says they have a 48,000 point inspection. But only CARMAX puts a car on the showroom floor with a big “REJECTED” sticker across the window. Show me why you’re not going to sell me a damaged car. THAT would be powerful!

Same thing…any shop can look good for the video. SHOW me a tech rejecting a car. The result? They’re not just acting!

The Honda rolling out the door. Prepped and ready for the next customer to come look at it.

It’s positive showing the person putting on the Carmax sticker. So many places put those on crooked…but Carmax looks like they care.

Nothing in the ad really ties to the last screen though. What specifically about that ad is “the way car buying should be.”?

So are your ads speaking to your core values? Or are they just pretty ads?

 


How Long Should My Message Be?

We get this question often, as clients are putting together their inital On-Hold messages. Is longer better? Shorter better? What’s going to grab, and hold, your caller’s attention?

Well, that depends on several factors.

First of all, is what your saying in your messaging focused on the client? If so, you could talk all day. Because people like hearing about themselves. You enjoy hearing “you”, and anytime you’re cast on the screen of your mind’s theatre, you love it! So messages that are engaging in this way, tend to need to be longer, and rightly so!

However, if your messages are about the company, how long it’s been in business, what products and services you sell, and those “dog-tag details”, you better keep it short. Because people just don’t want to hear it. As you’re saying “we’ve been in business since 1872, and we have the best products, lowest prices, and highest customer service…” the caller is thinking “Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. When will they shut up and just play music!”

Too many companys want to tell callers the “Who, What, When, and Where”, when all the customer really wants to hear is “WHY!” WHY should they buy from you? WHY should they do business with you? Tell them a story about THEM using your product or service, and you’ve won a caller.

But back to the original question. How long should it be? We reccomend having your message around 15 to 20 seconds long. That’s about 50 to 60 words per paragraph. If it’s engaging and relevant to the caller, you can make it longer. If the messages are much shorter than that, the caller feels like their being hit with a machine gun barrage. They don’t have time to realize there is a message playing, before it’s over!

So, tell a story, put the caller in the story, make it relevant, and you’ll find that callers will be asking “Please put me back On-Hold!”

 

 

 


Have you heard?

Have you ever been On Hold and heard a presentation that just absolutely over overwhelmed you, made you feel comforted, secure, and made you really want to do business with the company you were calling? … probably not! Because you probably haven’t heard one of our clients! Companies often don’t realize how they frustrate callers, and lose money On-Hold by having the wrong type of messaging. Our program will leverage your Hold time into profits by using specific, Message Conversion Best Practices.


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