Back in March last year, I wrote a post about ‘silent truths’.  These are the truths that people either consciously or subconsciously know about a product or a market or even about themselves, but they typically go unspoken.  And these ‘truths’ are usually unspoken because they are a little awkward and possibly not something people want to admit to.

The example I used in March was of online retailer, Dixons, who ran an advertising campaign promoting the fact that people use department stores (such as Selfridges), as places to go and look at the electrical goods, but then go home and order the items online from Dixons.  People might not admit that they go to department stores to look at products with the full intention of then buying them from somewhere else online, but that’s what we do!

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Whether you market to businesses or consumers, it’s important to get to the heart of what really motivates those people in relation to your product or service.

In many cases, people are motivated first by what affects or benefits them personally.  Even in a B2B sector, the target customer must be motivated personally. Only after you have motivated a B2B customer personally are they likely to take notice of the aspects of your product or service that may benefit their business.

In other words, in most cases, your marketing will gain greater attention when it offers a motivating personal benefit.

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This article is really a reminder about ‘free’ and the implications of what free means.  As marketing or business people we know that offering something for free can be a useful hook to catch someone’s eye, or as a ‘sweetener’ for the deal.

But, please please don’t forget the following… Read more

This is the first of several blog articles I intend to write about ‘compelling events’.   In case you’re not familiar with the term, a compelling event in this context is a situation that will arise in a customer’s life that will compel them to make one or several purchases.  A good example in B2B marketing would be an office move.  The impending office move date is the compelling event, and before this time the customer is likely to have made several purchases that relate to that compelling event, such as office removal services, new signage, new stationery, new office cleaners etc etc.

What is important about a compelling event is that it has a deadline.  The customer has to make their purchase decision by the time the compelling event comes around.  This then helps marketers create communications that are not only very relevant, but also perfectly timed. Read more

As you will know, the Internet has enabled some huge changes in the way we use and access information.  What it’s also done is forced us to become very good at skim-reading content.  No one has the time to read all the information they look at on the Internet, so instead we scan headings, graphics and paragraph openers to get an idea of what the information is about before deciding whether to read more… Read more