A Marketing Lesson From The IRS

What a letter from the IRS can teach you about marketing.

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Transcript

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This is the Marketing Director Daily, and I'm Tim Parkin. I don't know about you, but I get a lot of junk mail in my physical mailbox. Not my email. I definitely get a lot of spam and junk there. But in my actual mailbox at my house, we get a lot of junk mail, a lot of mail that we don't want. But today was different. Today I got a letter from the IRS. I don't know if you've ever gotten a letter from the IRS. It's not a good feeling. There's this dread that sets in this fear of what did I do? What did I miss? What do I owe? And so it stands out quite a bit from the other mail, from the junk mail. And it gets my immediate attention. I drop all the other mail, I shred this thing, rip it open as fast as possible to see what does it say and what do I need to do? And I call my CPA immediately. But my point here is there's a bunch of junk, but this stands out and it gets me to take action, and it gets me to take action immediately. And this is how our marketing needs to be for our prospects. One, how do we stand out among the sea of noise and junk that's out there? And two, how do we get them to open it, to take action, to read it, to do the thing we want them to do? And I think there's two components here that we have control over. The first is brand. The IRS has a brand. Maybe you might think not a good brand, but they're recognized. People don't like the IRS, but you know who they are, and you heard of them. So brand is an important part of this. I recognized the logo and the name as soon as I saw the envelope. I knew what it was and I knew what it meant. The second thing, though, is the urgency, the immediacy, you could say the threat, even of what is this? That there's a lot of things that come across your prospect's prospect's desk or inbox or browser, but how do you stand out? How do you make it something that requires immediate action? And in this case, the letter from the IRS is just that for me. When I see that, I drop everything and I'm upset and I'm worried and I'm thinking, what do I have to do now? And I'm not supposing here that we should scare or threaten our prospects, but we do need to create a sense of urgency, a sense of immediacy, and give them a reason to care, a reason to take action. A quick history lesson for you. Back in the day, the news was so shocking and so upsetting. There's a lot of negative stories, shocking stories that were shared on the news on TV back when TV was more prominent and more prevalent. And they called those segments drop the spoon. Because when you're making dinner and you're stirring something and you hear the story from the other room, it needed to be so shocking or disturbing or upsetting that you would have to drop the spoon and run to the other room to hear the story, to watch what's happening on TV. And if you watch the news today, most of it is still like this. It is jarring and captivating and clickbaity so that it gets your attention. And I think there's an element to this that is effective, that relies on human psychology and how we behave, how we act. And your marketing is missing that, most likely. So both of these are elements in your control. One, how can you build your brand? How can you develop a brand that is recognized by your ICP? So that when people see a message from you, when they see collateral or an ad or an email from you, they recognize it. They know who you are and they know what you're about. And the second is how do we make it motivating for them, captivating for them, so that they want to pay attention and they know that they need to do something with the information that's being given to them? So those are the two pieces at your disposal. And take a second and just think how are you doing with both of those, with each of those? Do you have a strong brand or do you have a brand that no one knows about? And how interesting, how much does your message stand out? How captivating is it? Does it make your prospects drop the spoon? Maybe not in fear or in threat, but in excitement, that they can't wait to hear from you, that they can't wait to do something, to open the email, to take action. And then think about how you can develop both of these. How can you improve your brand, build a better brand, a more memorable brand, a more positive brand? And I think the easiest way to do that is consistency, showing up consistently. I do that here on this podcast by showing up every day. And I think consistency is a big part of brand that out of sight, out of mind, if people aren't seeing you, if they're not hearing from you, they will forget you. They don't think of you as often. And so the simplest way, the easiest way, is to just be consistent. That means having a schedule and sticking to it with your emails, with your content, and also following up with people, nurturing them, retargeting them, and always being present in their feeds in their daily lives. And on the other side of the coin, how do you make your message stand out? There's a lot of noise. And we've talked about this before on this podcast. That the answer is not to be the loudest. It's not to shout louder over the noise, it's to have the right words you can whisper that gets your prospects to turn their heads and pay attention and lean in and listen close. And so having a powerful message is more important than a louder message. So, how is your message and how can you make it more powerful? And the shortcut here is not to guess, it's not to try different things. It's to go and ask your customers, your prospects, what are the things that they care about? What is the language and the words that they use? Go talk to customers or potential customers and ask them what keeps them up at night? What's their biggest pain right now? How are they thinking about those problems? How are they solving those problems? There's so much access to prospects, to customers to do this. And this is a continual process. It's not an event, it's a process. You need to do this on a regular basis because your customers will change and adapt. The environment that they exist within is constantly changing and adapting. And so keep talking to them and keep figuring out what they're thinking about. What's the hot button issue for them? What's the solution that they're excited about? And how can you tap into that and build your message around that and use the language that they're using? I've shared before on here that I call this the mirror method, that's what we really want, all of us, is to see ourselves in the mirror. And so the more you understand your customers and the language that they use and the problems that they're facing and the promise that they really want to achieve, then you can show them a mirror of themselves in your marketing, in your messaging, so they say, yes, that's me. And people will listen and respond much better and engage much more actively when they believe that you understand them. And so that's why this is so important. So two things brand and message. It's really what marketing boils down to if you think about it, but both of these are under your control. And you need to make sure that you're mindful of which of these is the bigger issue for you right now and which can you be focusing on. Obviously, we always want to be building our brand, but sometimes we have to pause and work on our message and get that right first. But consistency is key with both of these, and understanding the customer is a key part of having the right message and building a brand that people actually care about and want to pay attention to. I'm not supposing that the IRS should be our ideal as a marketer, as a marketing leader of the brand we want to build. But I will say when I get a letter from the IRS, I pay attention and I take action. And that is ultimately what we're trying to do here is to build a brand and have a message that's clear and compelling, that's interesting and valuable, and that people look forward to from us that makes them take action. I hope you think about how to build a brand and how to refine your message to get people to pay attention and to take action. And most importantly, I hope you never get a letter from the IRS.