When prospective learners land on your Web site, open your conference brochure, skim you latest e-mail, or pull your most recent seminar postcard out of the pile of mail on their desk, are they seeing words and images that make your offer irresistible? Will their interest be sparked? Will they feel compelled to take action?
If that doesn’t sound like the kind of impact your promotional materials are having, grab a few examples of your latest efforts and take them for a spin through the classic 4-part “AIDA” formula for effective marketing promotions:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
Do your promotions attract attention?
Put yourself in the mind of your target prospect. There are a hundred other e-mails in her inbox. She regularly receives postcards and brochures from your competitors. What is the “headline” that is going to spark her interest? Is it there? Do you feel any power in the words on the page or screen?
A good headline (the subject line in an e-mail) often asks a provocative question – “Is your professional development putting your members to sleep? – or promises clear, concrete value – “7 Quick Compliance Tune-Ups That Your Firm Can Implement Today.”
How about the image that goes along with the headline? Does it help to make the headline more powerful and concrete – a photo of a classroom full of snoozing learners, for example, to go with the first headline above – or is it simply there to look attractive? Many organizations, I find, create generic campaigns where the headline is along the lines of “Knowledge You Can Afford” and the image is of something like a piggy bank. They look professional and polished, but there is really nothing in them that would attract a prospect’s attention. The headline may as well be “Put me in the recycling bin immediately.”
So, how about yours? Score yourself on a scale from 1 to 5, with “5″ being “Eye-popping attention grabber” and “1″ being “Did you say something?”
Do your promotions provoke interest?
Attention is important, but once you have it, at least a hint of significant value needs to be right there with it if you actually expect to hold someone’s attention.
Question headlines are great because they imply that you are going to provide an answer to the question. Similarly, when your headline suggests that you will provide a list (e.g., “7 Quick Tips for ….) or “how-to’s”, the reader is almost certain to be interested in finding our what the list items or the how-to’s are. The answers to these questions can then point to the even deeper value that will be delivered through your educational programming.
Notice what that means? The promotional materials themselves must provide some level of value. They are not simply fluff. They are not simply a decorative path to a registration form. This is an increasingly important point in today’s highly competitive education markets: every time you put yourself in front of members, you should be delivering at least some small bit of value. Even if you don’t ultimately gain a registration, you will have helped to sustain general interest in your organization and its overall value.
Again, score yourself on a scale from 1 to 5, with “5″ being “Riveting, can’t put it down” and “1″ being “Delete me now”
Do they create desire?
Good promotions have a sort of “layered” impact. You grab attention, you spark interest with both the promise and the initial delivery of value, and then you keep the value – and promise of even more value – coming.
I’ve already been pointing to one key aspect of creating desire – actually providing answers, tips, and other types of value in your promotional materials. Another key tool – one few organizations use as well as they could – is “social proof” in the form of testimonials. Include quotes from actual learners – names, and preferably with photographs – talking about the results they achieved from participating in your educational offerings. If you can get video of this, even better.
“Results,” I should add, goes beyond the listing of “benefits” that appear in much promotional literature. You want outcomes, return on investment, cause and effect. “Because I went to this education program I can now do X,Y, and Z.” “As a direct result of what I learned from this seminar, my company has increased sales by 15 percent this quarter.” You get the picture. You are aiming for that treasured “I gotta get me some of this!” response.
You may not have any desire to, but once again score yourself on a scale from 1 to 5, with “5″ being “Pure, raw lust” and “1″ being “Meh.”
Do they result in action?
In the world of religion, preaching is nice, but conversion is everything. (At least it is down here in the South where I live.) The same is true in marketing.
You can grab their attention and get them all lathered up, but if they don’t ultimately click “buy,” or “subscribe,” or “Get the full story,” or “Like,” or whatever it is you want them to do, you are putting in an awful lot of effort for very little return. This applies doubly or triply if you don’t have actual sales people who can ask for the sale. So what is the key to an effective call to action? In a nutshell, it is ask them for the right thing at the right time.
Let’s start with simply “ask them.” I routinely encounter marketing materials that have a phone number on tiny print on the last page, or a “click here” link buried three clicks in to a promotion. As calls to action, these are almost worthless. A prospect should never have to search for or decipher a call to action (i.e., If I “click here,” what’s in it for me?”) In most cases, the “ask” should be made multiple times in a promotion, and it should always be clear what result the prospects action will lead to.
Now, ask them the right thing. That may not mean “buy now.” As the first three steps above suggest, effective promotion is a process of establishing value. Depending on what you are selling, and to who, there may be multiple stages, and as a result, multiple actions that prospects need to go through.
If the only “ask” you ever offer your education customers is for them to register – i.e., fork over some money – whenever they receive a seminar or conference promotion from you, then don’t be surprised if they aren’t exactly eager to hear from you.
One last time, the 1 to 5 scale, with “5″ meaning “Ka ching!” and “1″ meaning “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Now, tabulate and assess your results
Here’s my rough and ready take on how you can interpret your score:
16-20: Solid to excellent.
Don’t let up the effort, but if you are scoring this high, you should be seeing good to great results already.
11-15: Ho-hum to Hopeful.
You may be experiencing moderate success, but it is likely driven by habit and loyalty among your customer base. (Not that these are not important – quite the opposite – but even these will fade over time if your promotional efforts are lacking.)
6-10: Hurtin’.
You need to rally the troops and maybe even call in some outside help.
0-5: Um, call me. (919.201.7460)
Bonus Points:
If you’ve already thought to have someone else in your organization – or better yet, prospects or customers – go through this exercise, give yourself two extra points: that bit of initiative suggests that brighter days are ahead for your marketing promotions. If you haven’t had anyone else go through this exercise, I highly recommend getting them to do it and then seeing how your scores compare.
Interested in improving your score?
Subscribe to the Tagoras blog by RSS or e-mail – there will be plenty of great tips on improving your marketing in the coming weeks and months.
Jeff
