Communication for business development purposes is a very specialized area. When I was a bank consultant establishing private banks around the nation, one of the first things I did after signing a contract with a bank was to sit down and review all of the written communications pieces sent to clients, prospects, and to strangers.
The purpose of a business development letter is to create prospects. The purpose of a sales letter is to sell your company and its products to prospects. Most marketers confuse the two. They are two separate letters. Marketers think a business development letter sells products. It does not... at least, the effective ones do not. Instead, business development letters sell credibility and reputation. Business development letters make people want to hear about your products (sales are then achieved via sales letters).
Most bank marketers I worked with did not understand that simple fact. I have come to realize that most marketers do not understand the purpose of sales versus business development letters. Even the most sophisticated bank marketers in New York, San Francisco, Dallas and Chicago did not understand. They thought business development and sales letters to be the same thing. They are not.
The first and most basic rule of business development communication is this: The recipient of a letter is not a prospect to whom something can be sold. He or she is a stranger. To become a prospect, a response to a business development effort -- letter or sales call -- must be received. If you are mass marketing, you can make sales to strangers rather than prospects (developed via business development calls and/or correspondence)... but it is a very expensive effort.
The second rule is that business development letters talk about the recipient and that person's needs. You establish your credibility and get a positive reaction from them by proving you know about their needs.
A sales letter talks about your company and your products and how they fill client needs. Sales letters are sent to prospects, not strangers. The biggest mistake marketers make is to try and turn business development letters into sales letters.
The best private banks in the country specialize by client occupation. Physicians, accountants, lawyers, corporate executives, small business owners, entrepreneurs were all targeted for business development. We narrowed our definition of segments served. We had one private banker who served the needs of surgeons only. Another served non-surgeons. The same was true of CPAs and lawyers? small, independent firms were handled by one banker.
Those employed by larger firms were handled by another private banker. Each group's problems are different. Our message to them was designed to deal with their needs, not our products. Thus, the more specialized we could be, the more specific we could get about their needs. That means we could more effectively sell people on becoming clients.
A lot of marketers write business development letters from the perspective of high quality service clients can expect from their company. Big shock... people, especially affluent people, expect quality service. It is not a sales or business development point. And, it is very easy for a competitor to write a letter that makes yours look pretty bad by referring to client needs (which hints at expertise... for which people ae willing to pay). If you write a business development letter that speaks in general about your high quality of service and I write a business development letter that accurately points out some of the problems you deal with in your every day business life, which do you think has the best chance of getting read? Such are the advantages of market segmentation.
Viewing market segmentation, business development and sales as three distinctly different parts of a process is as effective for companies selling office furniture or computer equipment as it is for private banks. Know your market segments. Find out what motivates them. With most successful business people, ?time is money? is almost always a motivator because most successful people are very busy.
It is an art to write an effective business development letter. It is difficult to explain the business advantages you have to offer while talking about the letter's recipient? someone you've never met. The temptation is to talk about you and your products -- a guaranteed way to get the letter thrown away. Talk about them and what they need and your letter gets read.
Business development letters need to drip with credibility. For example, you do not on the one hand say ?Your time is money,? and on the other hand say, ??and I'd like to stop by your office during business hours to waste some of your time.? Instead, you tell a time is money person you will be glad to meet them early in the morning, before the business day starts.
Back in the 1980s, one of the major New York banks -- one whose name you would easily recognize -- did a huge advertising campaign for private banking. The lead line was, ?Now that you've made it, maybe you're ready for (Bank Name) private banking.?
What better way to say, ?We, the big, important bank think little old you may be important enough to bank with us.? Not exactly a theme designed to stroke the ego of the customer (and successful people have strong egos). I'm sure it made the bank feel important.
The final rule of a good business development letter: Be sure it strokes the recipient's ego, not your own. How can you do that? Count the number of times ?you? rather than ?I? is the subject of all sentences. The ratio should be 60-40 or 70-30 -- in favor of the recipient.
Writing articles or letters suitable for presentation to web readers and businesses is a complete distinct discipline and art that deserves not only more attention, but more study. This is because the nuances of web communication have barely been explored, and can change from culture to culture, and from subject to subject. Web communication is all about telling the most that you can using very few words and very terse paragraphs. On the web you have the mind attempting to comprehend letters on a computer screen which it is accustom to understanding as graphics as opposed to letters on a piece of paper, which the mind is accustom to understanding as print.
It is therefore imperative that web copywriters know what makes a hit and what constitutes a dud in the online arena. Many businesses have failed online simply because they were not able to advertise their products and services effectively, or they were not able to study existing market trends that would have made them better advertisers and communicators. Many online businesses succeed because of the right writing and copywriting, not because of great graphics on a website, some survive on the success of their products and services alone.
In order to succeed in online business, you need to understand that advertising and image are everything. Moreover, aggressiveness is delicate: you can tread the fine line between utter laid-back-ness and complete hard sell, and without annoying people or turning potential customers away. You can do this by making an effective call to action that is clear and concise.
A call to action is merely a way to persuade your customers to do what you want them to do. It can take many different forms, say by calling a certain number or ordering a certain batch of products at a certain amount to receive a big discount. This call to action is something that can be persuasive, because it convinces customers of their immediate need of the product or service. It can also be extremely hard sell, and thus annoying, because it can seem to force a customer to buy something that he or she has no need of.
This is where you should clearly see the difference between a good call to action and a bad one: as in any other marketing and advertising schemes, you should show the customer that he or she needs the product or service now; or you can show your prospective customer that he or she needs to carry out a task right now, because no other time is appropriate. This call to action can ask your prospective customer to do any of several things, such as filling out an order form, making a reply to a survey, calling a hotline, clicking a button on your website, buying a product in a brick and mortar store, or even favoring one product or service brand over another.
Depending on your call to action, you need to make the need of fulfillment urgent, and moreover, you need to make it necessary to the well being of your customer. Moreover, when writing that call of action, you need to make your language specific. Where exactly should your customer fill out the form? Where exactly on your site is the survey, how long will it take, and what will it be for? Is your hotline up for twenty four hours? If your customer clicks a button on your website, will he or she be assured that he or she will not be downloading spam or spyware? Which stores carry your products and services? Where are these stores?
There are many different questions that you should answer in your call to action, but you cannot use up all your writing space in order to compose the information. Remember, your words have to be terse and specific, simply because you need to catch your customers attention and keep it. If your customers are not sure about what to make of your message, they will consequently not be sure about your products and services, and you could turn them off at first click.
The use of words such as must and now and limited supplies only will tell your readers and website visitors immediately that they should get your products and services as soon as they can. You must also say exactly why your readers and website visitors will need the product or service. Study your market: are your prospective customers always stressed, at work, and needing a vacation? Are they always at home, bored with housework? Use all these disadvantages of life when writing that call to action.
A call to action also caters to the doubts of prospective customers about privacy, so be sure to address these doubts by reassuring your prospective customers that their identity will be kept confidential, that they can get their money back if they do not like the product or service, or that they have a hotline to call up if they need help. Stress how your company or business is committed to quality service and customer satisfaction. If the customer comes first, then your product or service will also come first for your customer.
Both Marilyn Barnewall & Rodney Powell are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Marilyn Barnewall has sinced written about articles on various topics from Interview Questions, Prospects and Mortgage. This article provided by -- The Online Network for Christians in Business. Your source for news, articles, and commentary from a bi. Marilyn Barnewall's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.
Rodney Powell has sinced written about articles on various topics from PPC Advertising, Writing and Internet Marketing. Rodney Powell is a serious part time Internet Marketer workingdiligently to go full time. He spends numberless hours learning anddoing the steps necessary to be successful online. To see a websitethat puts the principles of this article to work go to:. Rodney Powell's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.