Thanks,

- Gene Bellotti

Good marketers can change the behavior of people they haven’t met, and may never meet. How exactly is that done?

Here is how to create a message that will accomplish that elusive goal.
I start with the customer. I can tell you from years of experience that most people do not start with the customer. They start with the product and this formula: Here is my product. Here is why it is good. Here is why it is better than my competitor. Would you like to buy it? Would you like more information?

Starting with the customer is a beginning. I know the four types of customers and how they gather information and make decisions. But that is not today’s subject.

Today’s subject is all about presenting your product story in a proven order, the order that causes prospects to change their behavior and respond to your marketing.

If you have not thought about your product story or the order in which it should be presented, here is an outline.

One of the best copywriting courses I have ever taken is from American Writers and Artists, Inc. (AWAI). I am going to summarize part of what I have learned here, though if you are serious about marketing and copywriting, you may want to take the course yourself.

The Headline

Make a specific promise. An urgent, specific promise. A useful, urgent, specific promise that is unique.

For example, “Want more bank for your buck? Control your fees, “ an online headline from a Bank of America ad running on Yahoo’s finance page. Too vague.

A better version would use the body copy in the headline: “Want more bank for your buck? Pay no monthly maintenance fee for business checking.” That is specific, useful, urgent, and appears to be unique.

It also tells me this is targeted to me, owner of a business, not to someone with a personal checking account. The cost of click-throughs on the home page of Yahoo finance could be very high without that specific information. It is in the body copy but it should be in the headline.

The Picture

Create a picture with words of the future benefit.

Since I have spent that last seven years generating response for financial services (also many other industries), I will continue with Bank of America: their subhead is “Can a bank help you save time and money?” What picture comes to mind?

The visual in the ad is a restaurant hostess with a stack of menus checking the reservation list. The conclusion is: BoA must be targeting restaurants as one of their main prospects.

Here is what it could say (which is in the body copy): “Pay bills and businesses, and get paid by customers – all online.”

Can you see the difference? Save time and money…vs pay bills and get paid. In the second headline, it paints a clear picture of the future benefit. It is specific.

The Proof

Here is where you offer proof of the promise; it is where you establish credibility. Proof could come from a customer testimonial, a rating from a third party, the number of businesses that use your product, other businesses or products you are associated with, your history of success, etc.

In the BoA ad, the proof is also a benefit: “Cash back on business supplies from hundreds of top retailers.”

The USP

Answer the question why is this product or service unique? Even though it is obvious to you, it is not obvious to the reader. It is very difficult to describe uniqueness in few words. And which uniqueness is the most compelling. Pick one and sell its praises with benefits.

The False Close

In late night TV ads, it is known as “But wait, there’s more!” In financial services and other serious industries, it can be a summary of the benefits prior to the presentation of an additional benefit and the offer.

The Offer

What is your offer? Many times I’ve been asked to create a mail piece or ad that has no offer, just a presentation of the product. How can this be successful?

What online ad, email, direct mail piece or print ad do you see that doesn’t have an offer? Well, for one, the branding ads for fashion. A beautiful model, an expensive photo shoot, and the logo are the standard triumvirate. Think Ralph Lauren. Burberry. Givenchy. Prada. But if the typical marketer were to use this style, the response would be: nada.

The offer can have these elements: a compelling offer, purchase options, payment options and contact information, but it must have a compelling offer.

The Close

The summations of the benefits, the compelling emotional reasons to buy, the logical data points that support the story, the urgency of the offer, all are part of the close.

The Guarantee

“Surely you jest. I don’t need to guarantee this product. It’s that good. If we guarantee it, we’ll get returns. No one guarantees anything in this industry/market/economy.”

Have you looked at other promotions lately? Customer expectations are not set by your competitors but by Amazon, American Express, Apple and 60,239 others. And those are just the companies in the U.S. beginning with “A.”

It is expected that a product be guaranteed, after all, you do demand it in products that you buy, but not the ones that you sell? I believe that would make you a living, breathing, marketing double standard. The guarantee provides security. Security helps close the sale.

The Postscript

If the marketing piece is a sales letter or sales email, then the most important point is at the end in the postscript. Here is where you restate the benefits, make another promise, introduce a surprise benefit, provide more credibility or make a passionate plea for business.

In the Bank of America example, what works as the postscript is: Free online banking – manage your Bank of America business account(s) from anywhere you have Internet access, and…Cash back on office products and supplies – the Add It Up™ program connects your business to hundreds of retailers and allows you to earn up to 20% cash back on your online purchases.

I think those are strong: they are specific – 20% cash back and free online banking.

In Summary

From headline to postscript, this is not a comprehensive list, nor does it contain all of the elements needed to successfully create a winning response. Yet, if you adhere to these basics, it will be easier to succeed with your email, direct response letter or marketing piece.

If they sound foreign to you or far too salesy for your industry, then you are exactly the person who should test this method. It has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in products and services.

If you analyze the marketing that you receive over and over again (the kind that works, such as those annoying credit card offers) – not the marketing you see only once or twice – you’ll find this method in use.

And when you add in a bit of knowledge about how customers gather information and make decisions, it is a winning combination.

If you would like help in creating a version of this method that will work for your product or service, contact me at bellotti@customertype.com or call my direct line at 978.206.1792.

If you need a marketing idea or you have an idea but haven’t been able to carve out time for it, just schedule a call with your input or email me a time to call you for an interview.  I’ll send you back ideas and even an organized first draft.  It could be direct mail, an ad, an outbound email, a web page, a video, a press release, or any copywriting or marketing project.  Free, Free, Free.  Email me or schedule a call using my cool automated system.

While I am on the subject of free creativity, in order to be creative one has to think a little differently than the norm – some of that comes naturally, some of that takes study. Look no further for an example of this way of thinking than this first of a series on life philosophies:

Try to Get Old

Here is my approach to thinking differently about the media quest for eternal youth. Too much marketing emphasis is placed on staying young when the real objective is to get old.  If you try to stay young, as most marketing would have you believe is the ultimate goal in life, you’ll continue to do the activities you did when you were younger, wearing out your knees and ankles as you continue running or playing soccer well past the time when your body tells you to quit.  Ruining a rotator cuff, compressing your spine or just ignoring a recurring pain that becomes permanent, all the result of “yeah, I can still do it.” This makes no sense to me as a life philosophy.

As a marketer, I regularly choose photos for ads and marketing pieces where the subject in the photo is at least 10 years younger than the target audience.  That is what works.  The quest for youth is a wonderful marketing motivator; the quest for a long, healthy life is less so.

“New pill helps you get old!” is not motivating. “New pill helps you stay young!” will generate a response.

There is a separation between one’s life philosophy and marketing that works.

That said, if you embrace the Gene Bellotti philosophy of trying to get old, it means realizing that your body needs to last you a number of years, so it would be prudent to feed it and use it in a way so that it will last for the distance. In making daily decisions keeping this mindset, you’ll actually achieve the goal of looking and feeling younger than your chronological age.

For me, this idea of trying to get old started when I was very young. Since then, every birthday is a celebration of making it another year. Does my system work? Will trying to get old keep you young? It works for me.

If you have been lulled into thinking of customers as target markets, it may be a good time to remember that each customer makes an individual decision to buy, just like you do.

Even if you are part of a company team making a group decision, you still filter the buying decision through your own personal criteria, a process that you rely on and that has worked for you in the past.

Two of the four parts of your customer’s psychological type are concerned with gathering data and making decisions.  What if you knew this about your customers?

What if you knew just one more piece of information about your customer:  that your customer gathers data by looking at patterns of data versus individual data points?

Say, for example, software developers, who tend to be intuitive and relational when analyzing data. Would you continue to just list features on your data sheet or change it to show how combinations of features can yield specific results? You could add market data showing trends in development, or changing demand for features.

How you present information should be based on how your customer takes it in.

What type of customer are you? Here is a link to a very brief, quick self-assessment of your type.  Pay attention to the letters for each answer: ENTP or ISTJ or ESTP.  You can continue on for an accurate summary of your type, if you so desire.

Through the process of the self-assessment, you should be able to see how all of the companies marketing to you should adjust their marketing to have it make more sense to you. To stop emotional appeals if you make decisions based on hard data. To add big picture benefits if you are intuitive.  To stop yelling at you if you like to think quietly. To make their marketing more like you.

That is my message this year: Make your marketing more like your customer.  Because you can’t make your customer more like your marketing.

If the company president is a Traditionalist, he makes decisions based on data, not on feelings and meaning. Feelings are not part of his (or her) leading strength. The problem is that most people believe that others think like they do, in this case people making decisions based on data and logic. Known behavioral preferences based on psychological type are not considered hard data.

I believe that is why most companies don’t know the psychological type of their customers. The president doesn’t consider it data.  Yet type is a greater predictor of behavior than other factors like age, income and gender. And knowing type makes marketing decisions much easier since you have a detailed roadmap of behavior to follow.

Ignoring psychological type works if you are selling to a market that is the same psychological type as the president, vice president of marketing, product manager, etc.  But what if it is not?  Worse, what if you have no idea what psychological types you are marketing to?

That is not the case at Hallmark. That’s why I would like to commend the Hall family and the marketers at Hallmark who understand that their customer type is an Intuitive-Feeler Idealist who searches for meaning – a very different type than those who are good at running large companies. Their Christmas commercial this year is spot on. See for yourself.

Questions to answer: What is the psychological type of your largest customer segment? Is your marketing weighted to influence them? Is this part of the data in your CRM system?

People’s behavior is remarkably predictable if you know their type. Even if you aren’t all that interested, just a few key ways to read others can make life with colleagues and family more enjoyable.

This month you especially have to be especially good at mind reading as you rack your brain for gift ideas. Here are a few thoughts that might help.  Let’s say your giftee (my new word for the recipient) is an extrovert.  How can you tell?  Well, they prefer to be around people, have lots of friends and associates, are talkative, enthusiastic, outgoing, and are interested in many things.  A wonderful gift for an extrovert is an experience: a boat cruise, tickets to a play or concert, a dinner or drinks gift certificate that can be enjoyed with family or friends. The wrong approach would be, for example, an item that isolates them from others or has to be used when they are alone.

An introvert giftee is someone who is comfortable spending time alone, likes to focus on one thing at a time, has a few very close friends, is fairly reserved, calm, and more private about themselves.  Good ideas would be an MP3 player, books, gift certificates for personal items, home decorations, clothes, you-build-it products, movie tickets, a Netflix subscription and gift certificates for online shopping.

Want to give shopping by personality a try? At gifts.com you can shop by personality, either by answering a few questions about your giftee or just picking from the categories of people. It’s not as sophisticated as learning to speed read people, but it gets the job done and is another good source for ideas.

For straight up gift  ideas, try the New York Times Gift Guide which is filled with useful links to items such as the top 100 books of 2009.

With customers, gift-giving this year might be a donation to a charity in their name.  For college students and those who find themselves in jobs that are not a perfect match for their natural talents, I recommend the book Do What You Are.

What changes can you make to tune your marketing to this aspect of your prospects and customers?

Marketing to the Introvert: Energy from Ideas
Introverts get their energy from ideas. All they need is the idea; they’ll take it from there. Email is the ideal response mechanism for introverts. It’s not, however, the ideal direct marketing method. How many techie introverts do you know that want to receive unsolicited email? Introverts have become expert at filtering out spam. The huge anti-spam industry has not been developed by salesman.

Introverts of all types will, however, read direct marketing material (a piece of paper received via postal mail) if it presents valuable ideas – not just information but an actionable idea or two – where they can respond via email. After all, introverts enjoy a moment of peace, which is what mail provides them. Asking for a phone call is completely wasting precious marketing space, unless it can be preceded by a visit to an informative web site filled with data, information and clear product benefits.

Of course, if you are in a technical field, you’ll immediately dismiss the idea of sending paper. And that is the problem exactly. Your own preference for introversion interferes with sound marketing decision-making. After 15 years of the Web, why is your home and business mail still filled with direct marketing? Because it is profitable.  Direct marketers do not mail unprofitable packages. Like the Web, direct marketing is all about the numbers: who responded, when, which version of the package had a higher response, etc. Now those companies who only have an online business are putting out printed catalogs. That’s why am I receiving printed catalogs from Vistaprint, one of the best online printers.

But, direct mail won’t work in my technical industry, you say. It will if it is targeted to your customer type, the introvert, and the response mechanism is online.

Marketing to the Extrovert: Energy from Engaging
The extrovert seeks energy from other people. How can you give this person more energy through your marketing? A phone number for instant expertise (not an 800 operator). Live chat. Videos. Exciting copy and visuals. Excitement!! Email links that bring her to an exciting landing page. Did I mention excitement? Tweet. Make her laugh. Now that you have her attention, engage her in your product. Give her something active to do, even if it is to page through an online presentation, but it had better be entertaining.

The most important aspect is to allow your extroverted customer to express an opinion.  Most corporate web sites exclude this option except for a Contact Us email address.  There is no forum for customers to talk with each other.  My experience is that this idea frightens most management.  What if they say something bad about our product?  Well, would you like that discussion to be outside of your knowledge base or in a place that you can respond so that all customers can see your opinion and response?

Now begs the question: which ones are my customers? Are they primarily introverts or extroverts?   How can I tell?  Job title is the place to start, coupled with research as to the behavioral preferences of people who are employed in those positions. I can help with that.

The time has come to think a bit differently about customers and the people around you. It’s time to get back to the basics, to pay attention to the fundamentals of behavior, apply them to your marketing, and deliver messages that resonate with your potential customers.

People have been studied for the last 2,500 years, when Hippocrates noticed that human behavior fell into four broad groups. Since 450 BCE (Before Common Era) others have continued his work. We’ll get into more detail in later tips.

Right now, let’s skip ahead to your meeting.

Your quiet colleague gets his energy from ideas (I). He could be completely charged up by your discussion and formulating his next steps on paper. You would never know it unless you asked him. The problem is the more he talks and interacts with others, the more his energy battery is drained. He’ll have to reenergize privately at the end of the day. Instead he conserves his energy to work on the ideas off-line, fully motivated. You’ll hear short answers, right on point, and questions about next steps.

The interrupting, extroverted zealot gets her energy from engaging (E) other people, whether they engage back or not. The more she talks to people, the more energy she receives. She has to talk to think.  She formulates her ideas on the fly, out loud and makes corrections out loud as her thought process clarifies. You’ll hear her repeat the same idea or point in different ways. She perceives dead air in a meeting as a problem – it is uncomfortable for her – and it must be filled. Let no silence linger. After all, no one is thinking if the room is silent.

No matter which type you are, the other type can drive you nuts.

Now, what if these two types are customers or prospects? One wants the pitch in an email and the other would love a phone call. Mr. Ideas wants to respond on his schedule.  Ms. Engage can deal with an interruption almost anytime.

You have your own preference, which clouds your judgment as to what your colleagues and customers want: don’t all people act the way you do? Of course, your next thought is: if they don’t, they should.

How do you proceed, especially in this economy where every effort, internally and externally, must yield results?

A few answers and suggestions in the next tip.

Questions to ponder:

Is your marketing taking into account this most basic component of human nature?

What changes can you make to tune your marketing to this aspect of your customers?