Revenue Journal®

Here's a video that demonstrates the perfectly orchestrated sales pitch, shot and delivered professionally.

The better your content, the more you will sell.

A pretty simple concept to grasp, especially when we think of the buying process from the buyer's point of view. Most people who are buying something for the first time go straight to Google. They type in the search phrase they think will give them the right result, refine it if needed, and then start drilling down - mostly on the sites that come up "above the fold" on the screen. We all know this.

And yet, as I work with clients to improve content, and as I see content from the buyer's point of view, I am dismayed by how un-seriously managers take their own content.

What is the most important part of every email you send - whether to one person or to your entire email mailing list? The subject line.

What's the second most important part of every email you send? Your signature.

Marketing is often considered a very subjective exercise. But the expectations and behavior of email recipients have created certain absolutes associated with subject lines and signatures. Use them well, and you will add a lot of success to your work day. Use them poorly, and you will generate inefficiency, confusion, frustration, and a lot of wasted time - in your day and in the working days of your recipients.

It took a while before the Web really changed the way people bought things, but it has happened. Now people go to the Web first and research the heck out of a subject before they buy.

They scrutinize, analyze, and agonize. They Google and re-Google, fine-tuning their search term until they start getting the desired results. They know exactly what they want and they keep searching until they finally find it, then compare their options, read the reviews, and consider the price and the functions. Once they are satisfied they have found the right product and are comfortable with the company selling it, they place an order.

I'm sorry to say that, over and over, I am finding business owners struggling to make sales because their marketers - in-house or outside - are trying to use yesterday's marketing and selling methods on today's buyers, who have definitely moved on.

Buyers have specific questions. If you're not giving them specific answers, you're not going to capture those sales. All technology aside, this is the biggest difference between "old" marketing thinking and "new" marketing thinking.

The best way to illustrate this is with an example.

George Lucas, being interviewed recently by Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal, was pontificating on the difference between circus and art. He said that YouTube is circus - which the movie industry calls "throwing puppies on the freeway," because you just create something and put it up and see what happens. He then said that art, on the other hand, is "where the person contrives the situation and tells a story, and hopefully that story reveals the truth behind the facts."

This comment really caught my attention, because that's exactly what good marketing is supposed to do: reveal the truth behind the facts. And if you think about how George Lucas spins his stories, you realize how far marketing is from the ideal he describes.

Marketing is a force. Like any other force, it can be used for good or ill. There are many people who say that marketing itself is evil. Not so.

Marketing is only evil when the power of marketing is used to misrepresent or hide the truth.

I supposed I could stop here, because that really is the essence of it. But I'll go a little further to and provide an example.

If you want to see a perfect example of a company that makes it easy to buy, take a look at Home Reserve. What an exceptional site this is. Let's look at what they do right.

First, the home page.

What's the first question when you're shopping for furniture? Cost. Most people have a specific budget in mind for a given room or situation. And, that's the first big question Home Reserve answers, right on top.

As you come to this site, first your eye goes to the two people, and, immediately, to the prices. Then to the pictures and the fabric swatches.

Home Reserve uses the circle motif to draw your eye to important areas of the site, including the shop button, the photo gallery, and the swatches. One thing I find interesting about this is how the first circle you see is emotionally comforting - the two people obviously enjoying each other as they look at color swatches. Does this encourage you to assume that all circles will be emotionally satisfying? Hmmm."

Here's the first sentence of a website selling an email security solution:

"In today's business world, email has become critical to daily commerce. But, it also contains serious threats, threats which have increased dramatically over the last few years. You can't afford to ignore those threats."

Whoever wrote these words has obviously never spoken to a real IT person, who has been fighting an endless battle against spam for years. Actually, even a technophobic grandmother who does nothing but email on her computer knows that email contains "serious threats" which have "increased dramatically."

I'm in the midst of rewriting about 50 "sales plays" for a client. These are intranet-based instructions for salespeople making outgoing calls to potential clients. Each "sales play" describes the product or product combination being sold (the "offering"), the target audience for that offering, what's included in the offering, why the client should be interested, and suggested voicemail, phone call, and email copy that the salesperson can use when pitching the offering to a client.

Rewriting these sales plays is reminding me how impossible it is to be a salesperson who is depending on copy written by copywriters who have never had to make a cold call. The plays I'm changing, although each one is written about a different product, all use the same language. They all talk about the customer's need and the product's benefits.

The president of a small company recently sent me an email. "We've done well in a lot of areas of business, but what we haven't done is sorely inhibiting our growth. We need to master marketing and are committed to doing just that. Will you point me to the best learning tools?"

I'll bet you can guess where I pointed him…right back to his own customers. Here was my reply:

A typical business person begins the day…

Booting up computer…OK, 200 emails that I am expected to respond to…18 phone calls I must make today…7 hour-long meetings…this email says that we can't use the approach we all finally agreed upon…sigh…phone rings…boss…wants me to call into a meeting he's holding now…there goes my "quiet" time…calling in…hmmmm boring…why did he think I needed to hear this?…May as well do something productive while I'm listening…briefcase handle broke yesterday, need a new one…let's see…Google…typing…

briefcase leather black computer pocket Briggs & Riley

Hmmm…MSN Shopping shows a bunch of them, looks like…clicking…ah, good…wait, boss is asking me a question…yes…yes…yes, we've got that under control, I'm sending you the project plan…email to boss…OK, back to briefcases. Man, they're expensive. Better sort by price…OK…I'll look at this and this and this…

We all know that this is the reality of a busy person's day, and the reality of a busy person's buying process. Yet we write as if they are sitting around with their feet up, luxuriating over every precious word of our promotional copy, like a recreational shopper with too much money and all day to spend it.

Your website is a building with many rooms, and each room has a door. Each door has a sign on it, supposedly identifying what's behind the door.

Let's assume a visitor in your building is looking for the restroom. He's in a hurry. But some self-important people have been naming the rooms in your building. As your visitor attempts to find the restroom, he whizzes right past a door labeled "Executive Corporate Relief Center.

"If the door had simply said "restroom," your visitor would have gone right in.

Your website is one of the most important "employees" in your company. It is your company's most important salesperson and service person.

What kind of employee is it? Is it friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable? Or snarly and surly, thwarting the customer (and sabotaging the sale) at every turn?

I just bought a new laptop and its associated software and accessories. As I purchased and configured the computer, I was reminded again how stark the difference is between companies with a helpful website and companies with an obstructive website.

On the good side of the equation, we have CDW, the large computer company based in Illinois. I was considering buying my new laptop from them, but became convinced it was a good idea after talking to Jim Sterne. He told me he had gotten a cold call from them one day, which quickly turned into a warm call, which caused him to go to their website, and actually buy something. He has continued buying from CDW, over and over. Having now gone through a very pleasant and successful buying experience with them, I can understand his enthusiastic loyalty. More on CDW in a moment.