By Holland Cooke
Consultant
All this month, I am outlining revenue-producing strategies and tactics, proven by advertisers’ results (which pay us all). If you missed our first two installments, here are “So what?” and “Stop Sounding Like Commercials.”
Listen to a stopset of local radio commercials and you’ll hear lots of stuff for sale.
Cars. Mattresses. Furnaces. Checking accounts. Replacement windows. Legal services. Appliances. But consumers don’t really want any of those things. They want what happens next.
- Nobody wakes up yearning for a new HVAC system. They want the house warm when it’s 12 degrees outside.
- Nobody dreams about replacement windows. They want lower heating bills, less street noise, and a living room that isn’t drafty.
- Nobody wants a mattress. They want to wake up without a backache.
Great salespeople sell outcomes. Great commercials should too.
But too often, advertising gets bogged down explaining what something is. Instead, demonstrate what it does for me.
- Don’t tell me your auto shop provides complimentary loaner cars. Assure me that I’ll get to work even when my car can’t.
- Don’t tell me your landscaper offers weekly maintenance. Let me spend Saturday enjoying my yard instead of working in it.
- Don’t tell me your restaurant makes everything from scratch. Make me hungry.
Consumers need clues
Help them picture themselves after doing business with the advertiser. That’s especially powerful on radio because our medium doesn’t provide the picture… the listener does. And the picture in someone’s imagination can be more persuasive than anything you could put on a screen.
Holland Cooke (HollandCooke.com) is a consultant working the intersection of broadcasting and the Internet. Follow HC on Twitter @HollandCooke and connect on LinkedIn