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Get Physical: Give Your Messaging More Marketing Punch

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Do your marketing messages punch through the noise hard enough to be memorable?

One of your most difficult tasks as a marketer is to not have your message lost in the flood of emails, social media posts, ads and other communications that inundate your target audience every day. To stand out and get attention, your marketing communications need more clever headlines and subject lines, more striking imagery, and more relevance to your audience than others have. And to hold attention, your communications must deliver content that’s engaging, helpful and important to those with whom you want to connect.

But to be remembered and thought about after recipients finish reading them, your communications need to go a step further:  They need to have a physical or emotional impact on your audience that differentiates you from competitors and leaves a lasting positive impression. Here are three ways to give your messaging more marketing punch.

1. Make them “sense-ible”

When writing about accounting, legal or financial topics, it’s easy to get lost in abstractions and jargon. Things like cost segregation, GAAP accounting principles or QTIP trusts may make perfect sense to members of your firm, and explaining what they are or the technicalities of how they work may be of interest to some people. But if you can’t show how these topics affect your target readers in a physical or emotional way, your message might fade from their minds faster than light from a firefly.

To impress readers, create vivid scenes that engage the senses or tell stories that stir the emotions, especially the great motivators of fear, desire and ego gratification. For example, instead of explaining what a cost segregation study is, present a case study of how your firm performed one on, let’s say, a food processing company that makes frozen desserts. Write about the glare off the shiny mixing machines, the sound of the high-speed packaging conveyor, the white coveralls on the workers, the vanilla smell of the ingredients and the feeling of cold near the freezer — items that are components of the cost segregation study. Then include a quote of how the owners used the tax savings to sponsor a fundraising event for the local animal shelter. (Photos of cats and dogs will always get attention.)  The more readers can see, hear, feel and emotionally connect with what you’re writing about, the better they’ll remember it.

2. Add print to the mix

As digital media become the main way to deliver messages, print communications stand out more, partly because they are now rather unusual. But their tangibility also makes a different and sometimes stronger kind of sensory impression than electronic media that increases engagement and strengthens brand identity. Also, some studies have shown that comprehension is greater when people read print, and others have shown that people remember more of what they read when it’s in print.

So you may want to use print newsletters, tax guides, mailers, brochures and other print materials to complement your digital marketing communications. Print is especially good for cultivating prospects, for whom you may not have email addresses or permission to email them. It’s also great for impressing important clients, keeping in touch with referral sources, and handing out at conferences and meeting with clients or prospects. If you’re having trouble getting through to a CEO, COO or business owner, try a mailing (or delivery) of some physical object, such as a football jersey from the CEO’s alma mater. That will likely get attention and be remembered more than all the emails the recipient reads that day.

3. Press the flesh

Why are politicians so eager to shake hands, give hugs and rub shoulders with voters? That’s probably because touch is one of the most powerful ways to connect with a person — and why we try to “keep in touch” with people we’ve met. You’re much more likely to remember someone who tapped you on the shoulder, shook your hand, exchanged a high-five, or gave you a hug than someone you only saw on a website or heard over the phone. Even just being in the presence of someone can make an impression that images and sounds alone can’t. That’s why the experience of going to a concert or play is usually stronger than just listening to a recording or watching a play on TV.

For this reason, physical networking is still one of the best ways to market your firm and develop relationships that can result in more business. Going to a conference, Chamber of Commerce meeting or business seminar can put you “in touch” with people who might become clients or referral sources. To get the most out of such gatherings, develop your interpersonal networking skills — the ability to strike up a conversation, discuss topics of mutual interest, explain your services and, ideally, exchange contact information to continue the discussion at another time.

When you meet someone, look the person in the eye and shake hands. If appropriate, you can at the same time use your left hand to touch the person on the arm or shoulder or double-clasp hands.  The main thing is that there be some kind of physical connection. Establishing that will help you be remembered and pave the way for building a good business relationship.

 

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The post Get Physical: Give Your Messaging More Marketing Punch appeared first on BizActions | Thomson Reuters.


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