Your teachers may have told you that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. That may be true in the classroom, but in the advertising business, it’s different. Don’t ask your target consumer stupid questions.
For starters, don’t give your target consumer an excuse to say, “No,” or, “I’m not sure.”
Here are a few foolish questions you should avoid asking your target consumer:
1. “Do you like _______?” (You must make statements that assume that they like your product.)
2. “Are you interested in __________?” (If they’re not already interested, your job is to arouse their interest. If they are already interested, they’re probably buying the product from someone else.)
3. “Have you thought about ________?” (If they’ve thought about it, they’ve already done something about it. Besides, since you want your target consumer to think that your product is new, of course they haven’t thought about it.)
By asking these foolish questions, you’re making five big mistakes:
1. You’re giving them a reason to say, “No,” or, “I’m not sure.” (You should speak of your product or services as though they can’t live without it.)
2. You’re suggesting that they may not be interested in your product. (You should present your product as interesting.)
3. You’re suggesting that there’s nothing new about your product; so why should they switch to your product?
4. You’re drawing attention to your target consumer’s doubts. (You should draw his attention to the benefits of having and using your product.)
5. You don’t sound sure that they should buy your product. (If you’re not sure of your product, why should they want to buy it?)
Don’t say anything bad about your product!
Of course, no one deliberately says anything bad about his product, but it’s surprising how often amateurs come up with slogans that insult their product. About a year ago, the staff members of a school were trying to come up with a slogan to attract students to their school. They somehow convinced themselves that the first part of the slogan should be, “It’s small, but it’s….”
I did everything I could to dissuade them from using the word but as part of their slogan. The word but always suggests something negative. It’s like saying, “Our school is bad, but it has its good qualities.”
If your target consumer is going to notice the apparently negative characteristic of your product anyway and there’s no way to avoid it, what do you do? You present it as something positive. Let’s suppose you were marketing a small car, and let’s call the car the Toyota Smarts.
Here’s the wrong way to promote the Toyota Smarts: “The Toyota Smarts is small, but it has plenty of leg room.” When you say something like this, you sound as though you’re trying to defend your product instead of praising it.
Try this instead: “The Toyota Smarts handles easily in traffic, fits conveniently into parking spaces, and it offers you all the leg room you need for your traveling comfort.” In this copy, smallness is presented as a benefit, and the word small is not used at all.
The “Holy Trinity” of Advertising:
NEW!
YOU!
FREE!
NEW!
You’re offering (Don’t say selling; that only draws attention to the money they’re giving up to buy your product.) a benefit/advantage/opportunity (That’s right: Sell the benefit, not the product or service.) that no one else has ever offered before. If someone else has offered it, they’re satisfied with buying it from someone else. They won’t buy it from you. That’s why they have to think that it’s new.
YOU!
Notice how many times the word you, or something like it, is used in this copy: “The Toyota Smarts handles easily in traffic, fits conveniently into parking spaces, and it offers you all the leg room you need for your traveling comfort.”
The words you and your are used a total of three times, but it’s suggested two more times. After all, who is handling the car in traffic? You are. Who has to fit the car into parking spaces? You do.
FREE!
Of course, nothing is free, but there are ways of suggesting it. Here are a few of them:
1. Make a “special offer” such as, “Buy one, get one free!” That sounds much better than, “It’s now half price, but you have to buy two of them.”
2. Make the bottle (or other container) 20% larger than your nearest competitor’s but charge the same price. You can claim that extra amount in your bottle is “free.” You can raise the price later, and it will seem reasonable since your bottle holds more product.
3. Offer discount coupons or some other discount. If you raise your prices by 10% before offering a 20% discount, it will look as though it’s a bigger bargain than it really is.
Avoid using the word buy.
When you use such words as buy and purchase, you’re drawing their attention to the money they’ll have to give up in order to get your product. Instead, of focusing on the cost, you should continue to draw their attention to the benefits of having and using your product.
Many advertisers use the word invest, as though buying their product is an “investment in the future.” Look for other positive-sounding words you can use.
Give your target consumers a reason to buy now.
The longer your target consumer waits to decide whether to buy your product or service, the less likely he is to buy it. Give him a reason to buy now rather than later. Here are two approaches you can use:
1. “Supplies are limited, so get yours today!
2. “We’re offering this amazingly low price for a limited time only, so get yours before the offer ends!”
Notice how the pitchman is using the word yours. Actually, the product won’t belong to the customer until he has paid for it. Most people are afraid of losing something that belongs to them, but they don’t really mind not getting something that doesn’t belong to them. That’s why the pitchman is speaking of the product as if it actually belongs to the target consumer. It’s a clever way of saying that if they don’t buy it now, someone will take it away from them.
In this respect, the advertising approach is no different from the person-to-person salesman. People involved in direct sales know that, if he can get the target consumer to hold the product in his hands, he’s less likely to give it back to the salesman. Of course, a television announcer can’t place a product into the hands of a person who is watching him on television, so he does the next best thing: He suggests that the product already belongs to the target consumer.
Now, here are two really, really, REALLY stupid approaches:
1. "Our unique Da-ge-da phones are cheaper than any other brand." The problem here is, you're offering a high-end product by means of a low-end strategy. If your product is high end and unique, you should want people to think that it's also high quality.
2. "We'll pay you to buy our product." Nobody actually uses those words in selling a product, especially if it's a high end product, but lots of students have said something like them. Just remember that no matter how cheap your product is, it's still cheaper for the consumer not to buy it at all. In fact, the consumer is the only stakeholder who isn't trying to make money from the product. The consumer is the only stakeholder who is giving up money for the product. You can't bribe someone to take your product.
Now it’s your turn!
What does your team want to tell others about your product or service? Remember to sell the benefit! Remember, when you create a slogan, you’re stating the benefit in just a few words. Everything else in your ad copy should, in some way, support that one basic idea.
