In the wide, wide world of marketing, there’re all kinds of opinions being tossed around. And everyone is an expert. I’ve noticed that the folks with the least to say consistently spend the most time saying it. Beyond the point of mere pontification, they can go on at endless lengths to prove their point. Unfortunately, by the time they arrive at their great epiphany, no one’s paying attention. When I run marketing campaigns (regardless of client), I emphasize the obvious. It’s something like this:
We want X, You want Y.
If you do Z, we’ll get X and you’ll get Y.
While it’s obvious that I’m no great mathematician, you can definitely see that there’s simplicity in my dandy little equation. And more often than not, X = an email address, Y = something cool, and Z = as little effort as possible. Generally speaking, Z = a prize from a sponsor also looking for an X of their own. OK, enough algebra. Back to making a point.
When you make things concise and digestible, the public will be able to both buy in and reject you quickly. This manifests itself in a million different ways. If you’re building a website, minimize the click paths. Get people to the destination quickly. Sometimes that means a video. Other times it means a comparison chart.
For bloggers, it means don’t ramble. Say what you need to say, prove your point, and walk away. It’s a blog post, not a novel. And restating your point multiple times with different words, well, that’s doesn’t work either. Examples are good, redundancy is not.
Finally, qualify yourself. If you’re gonna put it out there for consumption, be prepared for folks to challenge your assertions. For better or for worse the Internet has leveled the playing field between experts and idiots.
In this rare case, I’m anti-equality …
