AMiable Solution #134: Is Your Pitch Perfect?

Are your calls-to-action assertive or alienating?  Persuasive or perplexing?  Intriguing or intrusive?

If you’ve successfully engaged your audience with your marketing pitch--whether in a flyer, letter, email, online offer, or print ad--you need to make sure your promotion follows through on that interest and generates a response.  The way to do that is through an effective call to action.

                        

How do you make sure your market responds to your marketing?  What makes a call to action effective? 

Visibility.  First and foremost, it must be seen.  It should be surrounded with plenty of white space.  It should be eye-catching.  And it should appear in type that’s approximately 20% larger than the content text.  If your readers can’t see it, they can’t RSVP it.

Accessibility.  Don’t just tell your readers to contact you.  Use action verbs (click, download, call, sign up, learn, order, mail, reserve, read, subscribe) to give your sentences more power and your readers direction.  Then, provide the resources they need to take action.  Include a toll-free or local phone number, link or personalized URL, QR code, etc. 

Accountability.  Set expectations for your market and identify your organization’s responsibility.  Make it clear what your clients or prospects will get by contacting you.  Don’t just ask them to “Enroll today.”  Invite them to “Enroll today to save 30% on your membership fee and access the same training, support, and motivation that 3,000 professionals experience every year.”

No single call to action will work for every promotion.  Each call will be shaped by the promotion’s target, tone, and offer.  The key is to give your audience everything it needs to make an informed decision and act on it. 

So go ahead.  Write something great.

 amidirect.com

AMiable Solution #133: Are You an Aggressive Marketer?

The word “aggressive” tends to carry a negative connotation.  Parents scold their children for playing too aggressively with one another.  Sports fans call players who put scoring or winning above good sportsmanship aggressive.  Doctors call diseases that spread through the body quickly aggressive. 

But not all “aggressive” things are bad.  Sometimes “aggressive” is just another word for “driven,” and when executed in thoughtful ways can have positive consequences.

Consider how your marketing department operates.  You probably have specific goals and plans for the year, but do you have them for each quarter?  Each month?  How much of your strategy is in writing, and how much is constructed--and left--in a meeting?  Do you ask for specific responses in every marketing campaign?  Do you provide easy opportunities or tools for prospects and customers to do so?  Do you make decisions on whims or on stacks of research?

“Good” aggressive marketing gives a department, and its organization, a plan for moving forward.  For making new customers and retaining existing ones.  For becoming a better organization.  For recognizing the things that work and the changes that need to be made.

Aggressive marketing makes the department active, not reactive.  It invests the marketer in both the company and the client.  It drives decisions about the department and the organization’s future.  It seeks to connect problems with solutions and clients with products or services. 

“Good” aggressive marketing departments don’t wait for customers to find them.  They seek new ones with while employing a healthy regard for customer privacy, customer satisfaction, and customer preferences.

 Are you being aggressive in your organization’s mission?  Becoming passionate about helping your organization and the people it serves succeed doesn’t just make you an aggressive marketer; it also makes you an effective one.