Twitter is good for marketing. Yes, its a great place to connect and build followers and get your message out. But its great in another way to. It forces you to boil your message down into short sentences. On Twitter, you have to tell you story quickly, succinctly, and without a lot of fluff.
This is important. The world’s attention span is shrinking, at least when it comes to advertising. You need to know what message you want to get across and be able to do it simply. If you can, people will still listen. If not, they will just be annoyed by your marketing efforts.
Can I Have Your Attention for a Few Milliseconds?
Everyone is saying that the human attention span is shrinking. People have less time and just won’t give you the time you need to make your sales/marketing pitch. Well, we all actually have the same amount of time.
The thing is, from a marketing standpoint, you just can’t get as far with traditional methods. Thus, marketers blame people for short attention spans. But from the people side of things, we are actually just fine, thank you very much. People are still capable of giving attention to things that they care about. There are just more sophisticated ways of connecting with what we care about, so we are able to focus on them more and tune the rest out. Yes, this does have some negative consequences, especially if we become insular and don’t listen to other points of view. But from an advertising standpoint, who needs it?
Well, we are still influenced by marketing, just in different ways. One of the big shifts is that people will not spend a whole lot of time considering an option before moving on. When a Google search brings back thousands of sites, people will scroll through several quickly until finding one that appeals to them. The ones that catch the most attention are able communicate their message quickly, both visually and with its content.
Your job as a small business owner is simple. Keep things simple. The more focused and clear your message is, the better. If you can’t put your entire marketing message in one simple 140 characters or less post on Twitter, you have too much fluff.
Master the format of short and quick, and you have a much better chance of someone hearing out the rest of your story. Make your introduction your message, and elaborate if you need to. Its even better if you can boil down your message so that it needs no elaboration.
Here’s a hint. Every time you look at your marketing message, don’t think of what you can add to it, but rather what you can cut out of it.
Refine Your Message to its Core Truth
You probably know what an elevator pitch is. Its your sales pitch boiled down into a very short message. You should be able to be compelling in a very short time window, say the length of an elevator ride.
The elevator pitch isn’t just for the go-getter salesman and the super busy CEO. Normal people are just as busy and guard their time just as closely as any CEO.
Think of it this way. If you want to show respect, package your message in such a way that it can be consumed quickly by your target audience. Chances are, it will be consumed while the prospect is in the middle of something else. If its just fluff, it will be skipped. If its compelling, you have a chance to grab the attention of that prospect for a few more seconds.
Here is where you marketing message needs to fit. It needs to fit in a voice mail. It needs to fit in a Google text ad. It needs to fit in a Twitter update. It needs to fit on a business card.
Some businesses hold to the idea that they can just sit down with someone and then they can sell them. Yes, but its getting harder and harder to get people to sit down with you. If you need a lot of time to sell a prospect, you could be in trouble. My suggestion would be to switch to educational marketing. Even then, you need to bait the hook and get people interested in listening to you with short messages.
Here’s a hint. To refine your marketing message, write it up. Take as many words as you think you need. Now, delete all but the most important words. Start by cutting out your ifs, ands, and buts. Then move to your fluffy adjectives and verbs. Cut down to the core words, and then try to craft them into one or two sentences.
Say More, Annoy Less
The holy grail of marketing, in my book anyway, is to be able to talk openly with prospects without them being annoyed by you. There are a lot of aspects to this, like getting permission and providing value. One of the biggest parts is saying more when you do communicate.
Wait, didn’t I just tell you to cut down your marketing message to its barest essentials? Yes, that was me. I don’t want you to say more as in more words. I want you to say more as in make every single word count.
If you can have people hanging on every word you write or say, you won’t be thought of as annoying. This means limiting your sales pitches and making them count when you do make them.
If your words matter to the people that hear them, you are going to win. If they are seen as annoying dribble, you are going to lose.
You decide what you want to do. Either take the time to craft a concise and powerful marketing message, and build an information and education campaign around it, or don’t. As the options for people continue to increase, they will be tuning more and more noise out. Don’t be the noise. Instead, be the trusted insider. And when you are, never waste people’s time with excess. Get to the point, and stay there.
Here’s a hint. Disguise your marketing message as a public service announcement. You can inform and sell at the same time. If people digest your marketing message as information, they are more likely to be predisposed to buy.
So, I’ve just taken over a thousand words to tell you to keep it short. See, its a process to learn to be brief and get to the point. You won’t be able to do it right away, but with time and practice, you will be an expert at marketing zingers that speak volumes. Good luck!
Recommended Reading
I am constantly on the prowl for good business books. Right now, I am reading Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk. I love Gary’s take on passion and business. This book will give you a kick in the butt to get up and get moving as you pursue your passions and your business.
If you are interested in Crush It, you can get it through Amazon by clicking here or by visiting your local bookstore.
Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.
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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com
