Eat your objections. They’re good for you.
Once upon a time in a far away land, I decided to become an executive assistant at a private equity firm.
I was greener than the greenest blade of grass on the greenest hill of Ireland on the rainiest day of Spring.
For the first 3 months, I made every mistake possible.
I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Marketing a growing business means quite a bit of the same.
We’re all bound to make mistakes, to irritate our customers, to not know what we didn’t know.
Just know this: Even though there’s always a mistake around the corner, at least you can use the bad feedback and objections to make better marketing. Yes, all those pesky mistakes & resulting complaints and objections are excellent background reading for your friendly local copywriter.
For example, I’m currently working on several online & web writing projects for a growing clean tech company.
To start me off, they provided some existing marketing materials and a Word doc with the key marketing messages, including benefits & reasons their product was better than competitors.
This was all very compelling. But it just so happened that I had read Joseph Sugarman’s masterpiece, The Adweek Guide to Copywriting. (Highly recommended!)
He emphasizes the importance of asking why someone WOULDN’T want to buy from you.
That’s where the juicy stuff is.
‘So,’ I asked my client, ‘why wouldn’t someone want to buy from you?’
He remembered an old Powerpoint document a market research firm had put together.
Not only did I get the golden reasons why people didn’t want to buy their product, but I also got the most compelling benefits of the company’s products, in order of importance.
It was Christmas.
How does one use this document?
To address prospects’ objections in a very subtle way, before they even know they have them.
So, by the time prospects get to the end of the email or landing page, they don’t have any “reasons why not” left.
And, they feel like they can trust the company, because no one is trying to cover up the truth by hiding behind exciting benefits.
So, next time someone says ‘No!’ write it down. When you need to create your sales messaging or your marketing copy, you can create it with both objections and benefits in mind.
I keep all my random notes on Backpack, which makes it easy to collaborate with others (or with my multiple personalities).
Tell me, why WOULDN’T you want to comment here to share your thoughts?
2 Responses to “Eat your objections. They’re good for you.”
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Thanks Racquel!