Message & Media : Conversation Killers

Five tips to avoid alienating customers with your marketing messages

Are you ready for a break from reading about social, digital, mobile, online and other media?

A colleague who is a social media maven recently reminded me that, "Media is meaningless unless it's delivering a compelling message of personal relevance to your targeted audience." Amen, sister.

And the objective of direct marketing messages is to engage prospects and customers in a mutually beneficial, two-way conversation that generates measurable, trackable response.

When you think of your marketing messages as conversations, it's much easier to avoid the following five conversation killers.

It's All About I/Me/We
When was the last time you enjoyed a conversation with a friend or new acquaintance who talked only about himself, his job, his successful career, his company, his co-workers and his family? Were you waiting to see if and when he might include you and your interests in the conversation?

There's good reason why, "How are you?" is a universally accepted conversation opener. It puts the focus on you—not on I, me or we. These three self-focused words are conversation killers when they dominate your message no matter which medium is delivering it.

TIP: Engage your reader and maximize clicks, calls, traffic and response in the mail by using the word you twice as often as I or we. All it takes is a simple edit of your sentence or paragraph.

The Nonstop Talker
No one likes to be talked at nonstop. It's the same with marketing messages that suck the air out of you when you read them. Lengthy sentences are overwhelming. Dense paragraphs are indigestible. And multisyllabic words often convolute the message. Case in point is this letter snippet sent by a law practice:

We are writing to confirm that our representation in connection with your estate planning matter as referenced above has been concluded and that our representation of you with regard to this matter is therefore ended. Because the lawyer-client relationship between us has ceased with regard to your estate planning matter, we will have no further obligation to advise you in connection with the matter or as to any future legal developments that may have any bearing on the matter.

These two sentences demonstrate why you should never allow an attorney to write your copy.