Thursday, January 22  

I'm a big mouth idiot - confession time

Howdy. Hope your day is going well.

It's true. I'm a big mouth!

You see, yesterday I gave a guy some advice about his approach to someone who wanted a web site. Here's an bit of the email: If you know of any sites that you do like, perhaps send me the URL (she won't know what that is).........................

Speak in the clients language

That's him in italics and old big mouth me in bold telling him that his client probably won't know what a URL is (Uniform Resource Locator - The World Wide Web address of a site on the Internet). it's important that we speak with clients in their own language. Otherwise we confuse them. And a client who doesn't know what you are talking about will not buy from you.

We might all be experts in our own field, and it is easy to slip into the industry lingo, but try not to lose sight that the client might not know all the terms.

I should shut up!

That above paragraph makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about!

But tonight I received an email from a client who I suggest a "Direct Mail campaign" as part of her marketing mix. She emailed me to ask what a "Direct Mail campaign" was. And fair enough.

Because old big mouth here has not taken his own advice and make things as simple as possible for his client. I'd confused her. A direct mail campaign is basically just a letter. (It can get more sophisticated than that - i.e. make sure your letter has an offer, send a brochure, a response device (which is a way to buy from you) and a Reply Paid Envelope). But it's just a letter.

I should have said, "Send them a letter."

Cheers.

Brendon