Recently I was helping a client with her marketing strategy. After a couple of sessions what I had been saying really started to click with her. She realised that because she knows her business better than anyone else she is the best person to identify what makes it special.

She also appreciated that what she needs to address in her content material is to put into words what she actually tells people on a daily basis. That’s because she is a very good verbal communicator with a great personality. In the process of talking with customers and potential clients she is able to close the emotional gap. However, achieving this in written marketing material is another matter altogether!

Everything I shared with her about ensuring marketing messages are framed in terms of advantages for the customer, “what’s in it for them”, really sunk in. I had been saying that marketing is all about telling a story so that you touch your target market in a way that moves them. If you know what moves them, and this is vital knowledge you can develop through your research and development of “customer profiles”, then you are more than half way there in shrinking the emotional distance

Only when you know who your target market is and what their needs and wants are can you focus your story telling in a way that will drive positive outcomes and close the emotional gap.

Of course much will depend on the quality of your products and the customer commitment you deliver by way of your value proposition but if you don’t get your marketing messages right and direct them in a targeted fashion, very few will get to learn about what it is you really have to offer.