When you communicate with your customers and potential customers, are you saying what your organization wants to say instead of what your audience wants to hear?
Yes, chances are those are two different things.
Your company instinctively wants to tell everyone how great and wonderful your products and your company is because they're passionate about what you do and sell.
Your audience wants to know immediately why they should care. Yep, back to the old refrain of WIIFM (What's in it for me?). They don't have the same investment or passion about what you do or how you do it.
Unless it has some immediate consequence that impacts something crucial to them at that moment, they may not care a wit about whatever it is you have to say.
When's the last time your company communicated because they had a vested reason in the outcome? By this I mean end-of-quarter sales numbers to achieve or a quota for lead generation, etc.
Did you actually think your audience wouldn't recognize your intent was inwardly focused?
I'm just guessing, but I bet that your inwardly-focused campaigns:
- are company (me, me, me) focused
- mention products and features - probably repeatedly
- try to instill urgency with your call to action
- stand to benefit you more than your audience
Here's the difference you can achieve with a thoughtful, outwardly-focused campaign.
- written to audience perspective (you are segmenting, right?)
- wants to help them solve a problem
- or tackle an elusive, but advantageous, opportunity
- or achieve an urgent priority you know they have
- is focused on education or sharing expertise - or both
- makes an offer with no strings (transparency)
- gives them logical reasons to respond, building interest & momentum
- establishes you as a trusted source for high-value information
Considering that the average open rates for email are about 18% with click through running about 4.3%, imagine the difference if you actually had something relevant to say that your audience is interested in learning more about.
Every impression you make with a communication says something about your company. One bad impression can derail your efforts. But, a positive outcome to thoughtful outreach is that impressions build over time providing you with the opportunity to become an anticipated communicator, instead of a junk mail sender.
Think about that the next time you want to toss a promo out the router because your company wants to talk about itself - or the next time your short-term numbers need a boost.
Building relationships doesn't work like a faucet. You can't turn it on only to get what you want and then go away until the next crisis looms and you need your audience to pay attention again.
These short-term goals may work once, or twice. But if that's the way your outreach programs are positioned, you'd better take a look at what you're really saying to your audience.
