Does your company’s personality shine out in your marketing?

Every company is different – even ones that compete for the same business, such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. So what makes a customer more attracted to one than the other? Apart from obvious difference in service offerings, like greater legroom or better food, the overall personality of the brand will be the initial factor. So what does your brand say about you? 

Do you have a professional, attractive logo? And what about your strapline – does it sum up for your customers the benefits of working with you? How about your copy – does it attract interest, have energy and compel the reader to want to know more by speaking to you direct or ordering straight away?

Your copy needs to reflect your values. So if you’re a company that provides fun solutions for your clients, you don’t want stuffy wording. Yet many people feel that they must put on an academic hat when writing for a website or brochure. But fun loving customers will find formal writing a turn-off. So write as you speak and your brand will shine through. That way you’ll sell much more powerfully – and consistently.

How active is your sales material?

One of the keys to writing great copy is to keep it in the active voice. The energy this gives your sales message will make a huge difference. It will help hold your potential customers’ attention – rather than send them to the land of nod. Here’s an example of the active vs passive voice from Wikipedia:

Passive voice:
Caesar was stabbed by Brutus

Active voice:
Brutus stabbed Caesar

As you can see, the active voice is not only more direct but is often shorter than the passive voice. It gets straight to the point and makes it easier to understand what the writer is saying. So it also helps you say as much as you can as concisely as possible.

Another way to ensure your copy has maximum energy is to use verbs not in the present participle ie shorten words that end in ‘ing’. So imagine for a moment that your tap has developed an annoying leak that you can’t fix yourself. You look up plumbers on the internet. Compare the following is more attractive?

Plumbers
XYZ Plumbing are local plumbers offering services throughout Hornsey. 

 

Your local Hornsey plumber

XYZ Plumbing offers you a fast, local service.

The second example is not only shorter and more direct, it talks directly to you and gets to the point fast. As it sums up the service in fewer words, there’s room for an additional benefit. As a result it sounds more positive and has more energy.  This in turn rubs off on the potential customer and keeps them keen to read on.
 

So make sure your copy actively engages your potential customers. Because the last thing you want is to lose them at the first hurdle.

How honest are you?

If you are in control of the copy on your website, are you aware that this is now subject to regulation by the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)? Their scope has recently been extended to cover marketing on websites, as well as in other forms of advertising. What this basically means is that what you say about your company and services has to be legal, decent, honest and truthful.

For instance, you can’t say you are the ‘best’ baker or candlestick maker in the world, the country, or even your town - unless you can actually prove it. You can say you are one of the best, compete with the best, strive to be the best… but not that you are the best. Unless you really, truly can show that you are.

The rules apply to the visuals on your site, as well as the words. So take care that what you show and what you say support each other truthfully and build a strong message.

For more information on what you can and can’t say, and for the Advertising Codes, visit the ASA website at www.asa.org.uk

How do you know who to trust?

A little while ago, when Gas Safe workers were known as Corgi registered plumbers, I had a gas leak. The Corgi registered plumbers I called out to investigate couldn’t find the leak, even though it was clearly coming from somewhere in the gas meter cupboard. So they eventually gave up and told me they would either have to remove and replace every single gas pipe in my home, or I should leave my gas turned off permanently. Obviously neither were practical solutions for me, so I went to another company who quickly found the leak and mended it.

I complained to Corgi about the first company, because as a registered plumber of theirs, they should have been able to find the leak and make it safe. Yet Corgi found in their favour. Which is perhaps not so surprising since Corgi was funded by their members. Which begs the question, who can you really trust?

Here’s a funny illustration of how financial funding can create a biased service:

A guy from Uncle Ben’s rice company arranges to visit the Pope. After receiving the papal blessing he whispers, "Your Eminence, we have a deal for you. If you change The Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to 'give us this day our daily rice' we will donate £500 million to the Church."

The Pope responds, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of the Lord and it must not be changed."

"OK," says the Uncle Ben’s man, "we are prepared to donate £1 billion to the Church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to 'give us this day our daily rice’ ".

Again the Pope replies, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the Word of the Lord and it must not be changed."

Finally, the man from Uncle Ben’s says, "Alright, this is our last offer. We will donate £5 billion to the Church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'give us this day our daily bread' to 'give us this day our daily rice'. Think about it." And he leaves.

Next day the Pope meets with the College of Cardinals to say that he has good news and bad news. "The good news is that the Church has come into £5 billion. The bad news is that we are losing The Hovis Account."

Why communicating with staff is essential

Last weekend my mobile phone froze on me. However, as I was just 11 days from the end of a two year contract I thought it would be a no-brainer to get an early upgrade. How wrong I was! I have been a loyal customer with my mobile provider for well over ten years, yet the company was prepared to let me go for the sake of 11 days!

When I mentioned the foolhardiness of this policy to the manager she replied that she knew – had in fact been refused an upgrade to a customer just one day away from the end of their contract - and because of such restrictions she was actually leaving the company to work elsewhere.

Not wanting to be without a mobile phone service, I walked out of the door and into the next mobile phone provider shop just two doors down. What saved the day was having to get my PAC code over the phone – and for this I went back to the original provider. I had to hang on their phone for over 30 minutes, but I finally got through to someone who offered me an instant upgrade with no loss of cover.

As my personal opinion is that all companies are pretty much the same when it comes to customer service (or lack of it) I was happy to renew. However, when I mentioned the manager’s restricted abilities to the new salesperson, I was met with surprise and indifference.

Yet the company was within a whisker of losing me – and it is always, always, ALWAYS more cost effective to retain customers than spend marketing money on finding new ones. So I urge you to educate your staff to do whatever is reasonable to retain your existing customers.

When re-branding alone can never go far enough

I couldn't help but be amused the other week when I went to a friend’s birthday celebrations. She had made sure the venue catered for all tastes with delicious food suitable for omnivores, vegetarians and vegans. Along with the meat and cheese dishes were two large bowls of vegetable rice, one clearly labelled ‘vegan’ and the other not. (Presumably the only difference between the two being that one also contained butter.)



By the end of the night the food had all gone except for - you guessed it - the bowl of vegetable rice with the dreaded ‘V’ word in front of it. Even those who wanted to soak up excess alcohol were avoiding eating it - and I don’t think it was because they didn’t want to deprive any poor vegan in the vicinity of extra calories. 



The very word ‘vegan’ clearly makes most omnivores run a mile.  I suspect they fear it may be tasteless and could even be the death of them – so they’re too frightened even to try a mouthful. Which is a real shame because in reality a balanced, vegan diet is a delicious, compassionate choice that benefits the health of humans, the planet and animals. 



Re-branding a ‘vegan diet’ as a ‘plant-based’ diet would no doubt help, but on its own will never last. Just as changing the negatively perceived term ‘Mongolism’ to ‘Downs Syndrome’ works for a while, the new term ends up being equally surrounded by negativity in the end. In such circumstances what is also needed is sustained education that changes biased, negative attitudes and beliefs into positive, intelligent, informed choices of looking at and interacting with our unbelievably rare and precious planet and the individual lives on it - both human and animal.

When humour isn’t funny

Humour can be an incredibly powerful force. It can help you get a serious message across in a friendly way; make people see an issue differently; or just make people warm to you and your brand. However you do need to take care when using it. When you’re talking to people face to face it’s much easier to judge their reaction and know whether or not your joke went down well. But if you write something funny you don’t know your readers’ reaction unless you get a complaint. Which is something you definitely don’t want to provoke.

When I was at the ice hotel in Swedish Lapland at New Year, we had a briefing on how to survive the night at -5C. As the guests gathered in the ice cold lobby two young Swedish women were waiting for us. They were talking in Swedish and suddenly one of them turned to us and said “We are discussing who takes the survivors and who takes the non-survivors.” Quick as a flash her colleague said, “I’ll take the survivors. Follow, me.” Guests immediately started to file out of the lobby after her – and pretty soon there were very few of us left. At which point the first Swedish woman said, “Wait! Some of you will have to stay with me because the rooms are too small to fit all of you in.”

Luckily her misunderstood joke was easily overcome and the few of us who had waited probably had a better time of the briefing as there were fewer of us crammed in the small ice rooms. But it goes to show that humour is relative and you need to make sure your words will come across as you intended and not be misconstrued. So do think carefully when you use humour. Used well it can be extremely persuasive.