The most common mistake I find in customer communications

One of the downsides interesting things about my chosen profession is I get to read a lot of customer communications – case studies, sales sheets, white papers, press releases, data-sheets, sales letters, lead generation letters, email marketing campaigns, follow-up messages, phone scripts, etc.  A lot :-)

And here's the most common weakness of the materials I read and often critique:  The communication lacks a reason the reader should care.

Nearly 100% of the materials I review lack a compelling reason the reader should give a damn about the message they've received.  What's needed most is a simple continuation to most feature and functionality statements.

Here's an example:  Most corporate communications read feature, feature, feature, functionality, functionality, blah, blah.  What's missing is a comma and something like this:

• which results in…
• which enable our customers to…
• leading to…
• enabling our customers to…
• creating…
• allowing…

All of the things above lead to a description of a benefit – translating marketing-speak into something meaningful to a prospective customer, which is the very thing a prospective customer will evaluate in a purchase decision.

Remember, a sales opportunity can't exist until a benefit is valued.  And your features and functionality aren't benefits – they're merely proof a benefit can exist.

What do you think?  Do you agree with me lack of a benefit is the biggest problem you see with customer communications -or- is there a larger problem I've overlooked?

Share This

If you're new here, please subscribe to this site by RSS or email: CLICK HERE!. Subscribing is the best way to make sure you don't miss any new tips, ideas, and thoughts to grow your business. Thanks for visiting!

Related posts:

1. Great examples of benefits versus features
2. A simple exercise to improve your marketing materials, resulting in more prospective customers and sales opportunities
3. My one exception to offering a new customer discount
4. The foundation of customer loyalty
5. The danger of short sales letters

• Bookmark :
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Stumbleupon
• Redit it