Updated: Say it to someone — Kelford Labs Daily

Note: For the next two weeks, I’ll be re-sharing Kelford Labs Dailies from the archives. These are older posts that you might not have seen before, so I’m updating and re-issuing them for 2024.

Today’s newsletter is updated from March 2023. There’s always lots of commentary in business and marketing circles about the value of “personas,” and I’ve always found that reality is better than fiction. Instead of writing to a fictionalized marketing persona, write your marketing to a real customer. A real prospect. Because when we write to a real audience, we write realer words—which are more likely to work.

It’s a little silly to make such a basic point, but groups don’t really buy things—people do.

You buy things, I buy things. Sometimes we represent other people, businesses or organizations, and sometimes it’s not even our money—but it’s our decision.

But most marketing sounds like it’s being blasted out into space, toward some vague idea of an “audience,” or a fictional, fantastical “persona.”

Think about it: How many businesses do you see messages from, every single day, that you’d never buy from? Let’s face it, it’s not because the message didn’t hit you, it’s because you didn’t care about it.

Because it didn’t demonstrate any value to you.

So I recommend—even when you hope to reach a lot of people—to start by writing for just one person in particular.

Someone real.

Someone who you know would value what you sell, but they just haven’t had it demonstrated to them yet.

Because, if you can demonstrate value to one person, you can do it for many.

But if you can’t—or if it’s a struggle—that tells you exactly what to work on to improve your marketing.

Kelford Inc. helps hands-on entrepreneurs and founders with complex marketing challenges define and articulate their unique value to their very best customers.

We’ll show you the way to always knowing what to say.