Few things are as frustrating as spending hours crafting an ad for a perfect product, only to have people ignore it.
I struggled with this for months…
Until I changed one simple thing, and it was like the floodgates opened.
And all I had to do was dangle a carrot in front of my readers eyes, and I could lead them like horses to water.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to treat your marketing like a carrot on a stick, to not only grab your reader’s attention but to hold the attention throughout the ad.
The Dog Park Issue
Picture you’re at a dog park. Dogs are everywhere, owners are frantically trying to calm their pets. In the chaos of it all, you lose sight of your dog.
But then you see him, running like an idiot because he saw the postman.
You are too far away to grab your dog, so you HAVE to grab his attention.
But how?
You could wave your arms and jump up and down, but he won’t see you.
Maybe you could throw a ball in the hopes it gets his attention.
No..
The best way to get his attention is to shout his name.
As soon as he hears you call out to him, he snaps his head back to look at you and stops immediately.
Now this is all well and good, but you’re probably thinking “Where is Daniel going with this, and what does a dogpark have to do with marketing… and where does the carrot on a stick come into play”
Bear with me, it will make sense soon.
Know Your Audience
When I’m getting to know my clients, I always ask them who their perfect client is. Some will give me a good answer, but occasionally I’ll hear, “Oh, we sell to everyone!”
Now that’s impossible for two simple reasons:
- Not everyone wants or needs your product.
- If you try to reach everyone, you will end up reaching no one.
Your perfect client has a problem, a desire, an itch that needs to be scratched. And your service is the tool they need to scratch that itch.
If you can reach these people specifically, the marketing floodgates will open for you too. Here’s how:
Reaching Your Perfect Client
Let’s say you’re a dog trainer. In theory, you could sell to any owner that has any type of dog: big dogs, small dogs, hypo dogs, aggressive dogs.
But you specialize in training aggressive dogs to be calmer and less like a demon. This is your specialty and where you make your money.
Now, you could put out an ad with a variety of breeds, all seeming fairly happy, and mention that you train dogs to:
- Sit
- Spin
- Walk on a leash
- Stay
This is bland and non-descriptive. No one is going to think, “This is for ME!”
Remember how at the dog park, you shouted the dogs name to grab their attention?
This is what we want to do with our headlines.
The headline is the first thing they read on your ad or email. If they read your headline and it doesn’t resonate with them, chances are they aren’t going to pay much attention, no matter how good the rest of the ad is.
If you highlight an issue the reader is having in the headline: “Do You Own An Aggressive Dog?”
They will take to this like a carrot on a stick and consume every part of your ad, going wherever you lead them.
They will think this ad has been written for them and will want to know more.
Do this and you will start seeing a massive improvement in results for your advertising.
In some cases we’ve had a 20x improvement on the ad just by changing the headline alone.
Don’t be afraid to stand out and tailor your headline to a smaller group of people.
Talk soon,
Daniel.
P.S. If you want us to look at your marketing plan and see what we could do for you, get in touch here: