This 3-Word Proverb is the Answer to Your Marketing Pains

Sometimes the oldest proverbs we are all taught as children, that we often dismiss as obvious or insignificant, are actually the most important lessons that we take for granted. Not just important, but ESSENTIAL in our day-to-day operations in our businesses.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Remember these classics?

Well here’s one that will solve your problems with your marketing efforts INSTANTLY with whatever post of promotion you're writing:

“Less. Is. More.”

When we start crafting an offer to appeal to our customers, this can take an extraordinary amount of time to do and get very little results from all our efforts. This means all that time has been wasted and not brought ANY money in.

Not only that, but we tend to make things far more complicated than they need to be.

Just take a moment to picture the process, let’s say you’re a service provider such as a Hairdressing Course Provider with some cancellations or days in the diary that desperately need filling:

You start designing the layout, drafting and adding all the information that would be beneficial to the reader, adding images and logos, adding testimonials or reviews, making the colour scheme match your branding, drafting and adding the body copy of the advert, sharing it across all your social media platforms with a description, updating your website, updating your booking system, maybe even emailing or messaging it to your contact/prospect list.

This whole process can take HOURS to do to get to the point where you feel like everything is just right.

You finally hit the “SEND” button. Take a deep breath and wait for the results to come in… and then you don’t get any responses.

You may even look at the data on your social media posts to see how many people have viewed it and then how many people have clicked through and the results are lacking, which leaves you with even more stress because now you have less time to fill whatever slots you had available.

Now, as you are reading this, you may have picked up on the problem that a lot of business owners fall prey to when trying to create a promotion to get a surge of customers and it’s such an easy problem to solve.

The solution is simple:

Less. Is. More.

Too often when we start making adverts or promotions to attract new customers, we get lost in the process with a mental image of what we imagine the end result to look like. Most often based on other advert styles and designs we’ve seen.

And in our eagerness and urgency to get to the end result of having the appointments filled or products bought, we end up (very naturally) overcomplicating the issue and then our desire to catch the customers attention and get them hooked on our offer just falls apart.

The key to successful adverts is the oldest trick in the book and that’s just to keep things simple.

You have to keep the focus of whatever promotion or offer you have at the forefront of your mind EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

In the scenario above, again assuming you’re a Training Provider needing your appointments filled, rather than trying to craft a huge explanation of an advert of what service package is being offered, why this is beneficial, why they shouldn’t miss out, about the business and the awards the business has received etc, be direct and keep it simple.

The focus is filling appointments, so a “Last Minute Slots Available” or “New Course Date Announcement” type advert is all that’s needed. Nothing fancy or complicated. Just straightforward information.

Here is a perfect example of a business owner working so hard to create a perfect advert where you can clearly see the time spent to get everything “perfect” but in reality, the viewers won’t engage their time with something so long and complicated.

This is all just 1 CONTINUOUS advert.

So first off, absolute respect for the business owner trying so hard to grow their business and the sheer effort and time invested in this. But there are areas this could be streamlined so much more efficiently whilst actually BOOSTING the engagement and returns for the hard work.

Bare in mind, as an advert on Facebook, the average attention time for someone scrolling is 3 seconds per advert.

3 SECONDS. That’s all the chance you have to grab their attention and keep it long enough to invoke a desire to buy.

Here is another example of a business owner in the same industry offering teaching courses but far more simple and effective:

The difference is immediate. Cleaner design. Before and After shots for proof of competency. Video for efficiency to showcase benefits. Main key USP to attract engagement from viewers. Very minimalist in terms of approach. 

A big contrast between these 2 services offering similar products.

The lesson in this is to keep your posts and adverts SIMPLE. Keep it focused on what you are offering and the benefits. Only what is absolutely essential to convey the message you NEED to be heard. Everything else isn’t necessary no matter how much we might think it is.

Less. Is. More.

If you need help with Marketing your business, email benjamin@nextgenerationmarketing.co.uk or complete the “Book Your Consultation Now” form for a FREE Business Marketing Analysis.