Note from Aliza - I have to confess it is strange hearing from an entrepreneur who has the same name as me! I have only met 3 other Aliza’s in my life although it is a popular girl’s name in Israel. Anyway, had to mention that because it really was an interesting experience!

Aliza Freud is founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, a national network of women who are interested in influencing the products and services around them. SheSpeaks provides women with a forum to express what they need and want as well as opportunities to connect with each other. The women’s opinions are then broadcasted to a broad audience including companies that develop products and services, the media and other women.

Aliza suggests the following tips to avoid missing critical connections with your customers.

Are your marketing communications as effective as they should be? As entrepreneurs we have limited (or nonexistent!) marketing and advertising budgets, so we need to stretch these budgets to be as effective as possible. How can you ensure your communications are compelling and hard hitting?

Connecting with your customer

I received a postcard a few weeks ago from a major financial services firm. The headline on the front of the card in large type face read, “Sign up for Recurring Billing, it can save you time”. The accompanying image showed a woman holding a laptop and laughing.

What? What the heck were they talking about? This company with significant marketing resources made an error that I see over and over again from companies large and small - they focused the communication on the “feature” and not the “benefit”.

What does this mean? The “feature” they had created was called “Recurring Billing” - but who knows what that is? They failed to convey the benefit of the feature, which is that it helps time crunched individuals who are looking to keep all of their bill paying needs in one place. At the end of the month, all you have to do is go to one place - the company’s website - and click to pay all of your bills at once. Wow! Now, that’s a service that could be really helpful to me. Yet, they lost my attention before I was able to ascertain the value of the service.

To avoid a similar fate to this communication (a toss in the trash bin), consider the following tips for creating eye and mind catching communications and making the communication as hard hitting as possible.

1. Know your product. Be sure to have a clear understanding, in a couple of words, of what your product delivers in benefit to your customer.

2. Convey the benefit of your product. Why would someone want to use it? In the case above, it’s all about convenience. “Do you find it hard to keep track of all of your bills at the end of the month? Or “Do you wish that you could pay all of your monthly bills with the click of a button?”

3. Manage your product mentions. Its fine to reinforce the name of the product or feature, but be sure to not make it the “hero” and main focus of the communication.

Subscribe to blog via RSS