What's Your "Only-One Advantage?"

What if there was something about your business that literally forced people to buy from you? How would that affect your income and your lifestyle?

Not possible or practical you say?

Please consider the following. It will help you develop a strategy that could potentially stun your competition and leave them scratching their heads about what to do. And it just might help you corner the market in your industry.

First, get out a piece of notebook paper and make a list of all the things you do for your customers. Just do a brain dump of everything you offer from price to service. Now cross off every item that is also offered by your competitors.

How did you do?

Is there at least one thing that you do that your customers must have that your competitors don't do? If not, then why should people do business with you versus your competition?

If you have some things that you do that are unique to your business, the next step is to evaluate them in terms of their relevance to your customers.

Suppose you offer free delivery or a free service contract or free replacement parts. Those items all sound good, but unless you prove they are meaningful to your customers, they won't be the tipping point that makes you indispensable.

The simplest and best way to prove your benefits are significant is to ask your current and past customers what they like best about what you do. You may find that what they really like is different than what you thought they'd like. This can be an eye-opening and highly rewarding process for you. When you can identify what your customers really like, you can focus on those things in your advertising and promotion efforts.

Ideally, at least one of the things your customers like about you will be something that your competitors don't offer. You can then test this as your only-one advantage.

Or it could be that what your customers like about you is also offered by your competitors but they don't publicize it. Something that might be standard operating procedure yet unpublicized might be extremely important to your customers. If you are the first to publicize it, you can preempt your competition. If they start publicizing it they may appear to be copycats.

If you don't have an obvious only-one advantage, you may have to create one. The key is to test it first to make sure it's both meaningful to your customers and profitable to you.

For example, let's say you're a dentist and you heard that offering spa-like amenities would be an advantage to you in your trade zone. Before you spend lots of money, you might want to poll your patients first to learn how they perceive your environment now. If their feedback indicates that your office could use a makeover, only then should you consider making the investment.

What if you've thought and thought and you can't seem to come up with an only-one advantage that makes sense? You can use a fall-back advantage that is easy to implement and test in most cases: a bold guarantee.

First, take a look at your competitors and see what they do in the way of a guarantee. Most guarantees are shallow and toothless. Can you design an iron-clad, no-holds-barred, outrageous guarantee that is so powerful, it will be a no-brainer for people to try you out?

Federal Express, Dominos Pizza and Sears all built billion-dollar businesses based on some kind of strong guarantee. So if you don't have anything else, you can implement a better guarantee as your only-one advantage.

For assistance with marketing strategy and developing your only-one advantage contact Ben Edwards today at 617-670-1888, ext. 1.

Copywriting Tips that Increase Advertising Response Rates

We read advertisements to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready -- even eager -- to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it.
– Daniel J. Boorstin

Back in my first college advertising class, I was introduced to the AIDA formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, & Action. I’m sure many of you are aware of it. In case you are not, AIDA refers to the four things an advertisement must stimulate in the reader.

The AIDA Components:

Attention – Your ad must grab the reader’s attention with words and images that pull them in and make them stop in their tracks.

Interest – Once you’ve gotten their attention, you must maintain it by holding their interest.

Desire – You must instill in the reader the motivation to take action. A strong desire to have your product or service.

Action – This is the key step. Getting the reader to act on their desire and take the appropriate step you are seeking. This might be to contact you by phone, visit your place of business or website, etc.

Although people are aware of the AIDA formula, many don’t implement it effectively. In this post, I will provide a few tips that will enable you to utilize the AIDA outline to write better ad copy and increase the response rates of your advertising.

Before focusing on the four AIDA points, I can’t stress enough how critical it is to spend sufficient time learning about your audience and what their problems and concerns are. This will help you match the benefits of your product or service to a specific need and therefore write a more effective ad.

First, let’s talk about what it takes to get the reader’s attention.

Start by trying this experiment:

Pick up a magazine that covers an area you are interested in. Flip through it, glancing at every ad and ask yourself one simple question:

“Why should I care?”

If the headline catches your eye and stops you for a moment, and the ad seems to speak to YOU then it is has effectively accomplished goal #1 - getting the reader's attention.

Your ad should contain a compelling headline that speaks directly to the interests of the reader. It could contain a major benefit or simply a teaser that draws the reader into the copy.

Interest is our next area of focus. And the next question for you to pose when glancing at the ads that caught your attention previously is:

“What’s in to for me?”

Good ad copy supports the headline and tells the reader how the product or service can be of value to them by meeting a need or solving a problem they have.

Select all the ads in the publication you are holding that meet this criteria for you.

There is a big difference between the recognition of a need and the desire to act. Your copy must now generate desire in the reader. Desire is a motivation to act and your copy must help provide that motivation. Here’s how:

• Tell a convincing story. Make it very clear how the benefits your product or service offers will solve the reader's business problem.
• Show how other people have used your product or service and how it has helped them. Use testimonials the describe specific results.
• Use scarcity to create demand. Show how your product, service or offer will be available for a limited time only.

Select all the ads in the publication you are holding that meet this criteria for you. The ones that generate desire in you for the product or service.

Action! The final step.

Well, let me ask… you started this exercise with a magazine full of advertisements. How many do you have left? How many ads did you choose that got your attention, held your interest, created sufficient desire for you to take action and brought you to this final stage? At least a few I hope.

Now it’s time to act.

A good ad contains a simple and obvious call to action for the reader.

Look at the ads you are left holding and locate the call to action. Is it clear and evident what the advertiser want you to do? Call an 800 number to place an order, visit their place of business or website, request a catalog, etc. If the answer is Yes, you’re very likely to take that action in short order.

When you’re writing a call to action, tell the reader exactly what you want them to do and make it easy for them to do it.

I hope these tips prove helpful.

By the way, don't blame me if you ended up buying something as a result of this exercise.
Blame the person who wrote the highly effective copy.
On second thought...what ad did you select?
Maybe you should blame me!