Kelford Labs Daily: All there is to it

“The first thing one must do to succeed in advertising is to have the attention of the reader. That means to be interesting. The next thing is to stick to the truth, and that means rectifying whatever’s wrong in the merchant’s business. If the truth isn’t tellable, fix it so it is. That is about all there is to it.” — Early 20th century advertiser John E. Powers, as quoted in Stephen Fox’s The Mirror Makers

Struggling to write your latest social media post, blog, newsletter, or ad?

First, think of what’s most interesting to your reader. What do they need, in their words?

Then, think of something that’s undeniably true about your business that you know your best customers care about. What tradeoffs have you made to be uniquely useful to them?

Fix anything about your service offering that your best customers don’t value or don’t like. Focus, don’t expand.

And then tell them the truth about your tradeoffs, using their language, in an interesting way.

It’s that simple, and that difficult.

But when you pay more attention to what your best customers need to hear, and less on what you want to say, you’ll find your marketing gets much easier.

And that’s about all there is to it.