Direct marketing genius David Ogilvy maintained that the truth always sells.
If your marketing campaigns are masterpieces of exaggeration and bullshit, you’re not doing your business any favours. Especially right now, with Likeonomics a huge marketing hit and the general public fed up the the back teeth with being misled.
Be angelic instead and beat your competitors
Here’s how to survive the marketing minefield and take your competitors by storm:
- if you’re a one man band, say so. Don’t pretend to be a big business when you’re small
- if you’ve made a mistake, admit it. Research proves honesty is wonderfully disarming in a marketing context
- speak plain English, creating an appealingly human tone of voice to help make your business more likeable
- drop the small print and cut out caveats. Be loud and proud instead, turning negatives into positives
- write plain language Terms and Conditions. Don’t settle for the crappy legalese most businesses use. Plain English T&C are a legal requirement in Britain too, so keeping it simple helps you stay on the right side of the law
- display your street address, land line telephone number, limited company number and registered address, VAT number etc on your home or contact page to promote openness and comply with EU distance selling regulations
- cut out the gumph, removing unnecessary verbiage to make your site and marketing materials leaner, cleaner and more user/search engine friendly
