A lesson from Coca-Cola – 9 ways to make an impression, and motivate a purchase…

How To Create Sales Messages Your Prospects Will Remember,
And Then Take Action And Buy From You

 

Where do you start when you need to create a sales message that your customers just can’t forget?

 

It’s hard enough just trying to grab their attention for a few seconds, let alone impact them enough that they’ll remember you, your product or your service.

 

It might sound like a marketer’s pipe-dream, but it can be done!

 

Take a look at good old Coca Cola.

 

Perhaps you remember their famous advertisement… Picture a sun-dappled hilltop, hundreds of free-spirited folk coming together, their voices rising in a chorus …

 

“I’d like to teach the world to sing …”

 

The people join hands. They’re smiling. The happy pills are kicking in.

 

“In perfect harmony …”

 

It was such a popular ad, that when Coke tried to test other campaigns, viewers wrote in begging them to put the “teach the world” commercial back on the air.

 

The problem was that it didn’t sell much Coca Cola.

 

So there’s the first lesson.

 

It’s not necessarily hard to get your customer to remember something, for example, a catchy tag-line. But it’s much tougher to get them motivated enough that they overcome any obstacles, or complacency, or inertia, and actually take some action to BUY your product or service.

 

In Coke’s case, one of the biggest breaks in their history occurred when a new Marketing Director called Sergio Zyman was appointed. His first sweeping change was to dump the ambiguous “brand awareness” strategy.

 

Forget making people “feel happy” about the idea of Coke, he told the company’s board of Directors. Let’s sit down and find out why they really drink the stuff.

 

Perhaps you think that Coca-Cola is just a fizzy brown drink, and people only drink it because they’re thirsty. You’d be wrong on a number of counts.

 

Zyman pushed his team hard to precisely understand why their customers bought Coke. They then came up with no fewer than 35 reasons why Coke had an appeal to customers over other brands.

So what did he do next?

Zyman helped an ad agency conjure up 35 different ads to capitalize on those “hot-button” hooks already present in Coca Cola’s target audience. Suddenly they were back in growth mode, and their market-share took off.

 

(Sergio Zyman has written an excellent book titled “The End of Marketing as We Know It”, which I highly recommend).

 

Now I can hear you saying “Yes, but we’re still talking about a fizzy drink, and we’re talking about TV and radio advertising, none of which is relevant to me and my business”.

 

It doesn’t matter, because this Coca-Cola advert example still contains a wealth of relevant lessons, for marketers just like you..

 

9 WAYS TO MAKE A LASTING IMPRESSION
AND MOTIVATE YOUR PROSPECTS TO BUY

 

Here are the first four examples. Five more will follow shortly, in my next post.

 

1) BE RELEVANT

 

The Zyman campaign found 35 relevant ways to show how Coke made you feel good on a hot day, went great with a hot dog at the park, or was a reward worth having after a hard day’s work, etc.

 

It’s not surprising that relevant benefits are a critical weapon in the armoury of any effective copywriter or other selling professional.

 

Think about it. Who are you most likely to remember? The friend that always has something interesting and relevant to say, and helps you out … or the one who’s never done you any favours?

 

2) BE CLEAR

 

Nothing laser-targets your ideal prospects better than a simple, well-focused message. Coke’s “teach the world to sing” campaign didn’t do the work it was supposed to because there was no clear connection to buying the product.

 

And by the way, listen carefully here, because when I say ‘simple and well-focused’, I don’t necessarily mean ‘be brief’ either. Rather, I mean taking all the time you need to find the relevant hot button(s) before you pull the trigger.

 

There will always be at least one really great idea that bridges the gap between you and your customer. You can become the marketing expert because you’ve learned how to find it, how to define it, and how to express it clearly. It’s that simple.

 

Does that mean you can no longer write long copy? Not at all.

 

A long message that feels short and ‘all about me’ is often – and some say always — much stronger and more effective than a short message that feels long or disjointed from the sale you’re trying to make.

 

3) BE FIRST

 

I don’t necessarily mean you have to be the first to come up with the product or service. The real marketing power is in being first to make a strong claim.

 

Al Reis and Jack Trout’s breakthrough marketing book “Positioning – The Battle For the Mind” made this very clear. Remember Betamax Video? It was miles better than VHS videotapes. But VHS found a way to get in front of the public eye more efficiently.

 

And it’s the same for Windows and the PC versus Apple. Millions of people will argue passionately that Apple – by a country mile — produces a better machine and a better operating system.

 

But Bill Gates and Microsoft arranged a distribution channel at the very start that got them out there and into the public consciousness much faster, and on a much wider scale. They marketed better by making the claims people wanted to hear, where and when they were around to hear them.

 

4) INVENT A NEW TERM

 

In the 70’s and 80’s Miller, the American draft beer, had become a flagging brand, with limited market share. Then, in 1986, someone took a look at their beer brewing process and realized that their main Miller brand was not heat pasteurised as was typical, but was “cold filtered.”

 

Now whilst cold filtering is a common brewing technique, Miller was among the first to start using the term in their ads, and it was an instant hit.

 

Sales of ‘Miller Genuine Draft’ beer soared on the back of this re-launch and the ‘new and unique’ quality of their beer.

 

James Dyson did a similar job here in the UK with the launch of his range of vacuum cleaners.

 

Dyson’s patented Root Cyclone™ technology doesn’t rely on a bag to trap all the dust and dirt. Instead, it spins the air so fast that centrifugal forces up to 150,000 times the force of gravity fling dust and dirt out of the air and straight into the clear bin.

 

Backed by the unique claim of using ‘cyclone technology’, Dyson’s vacuum sales are the foundation of a business that posted record annual financial results for 2016. Sales rose 45% year-on-year to £2.5bn! 

 

OK, that’s it for today. In my next ‘Common-Sense Marketing’ post I’ll give you another 5 great ways to stand apart from your competition and make your sales messages interesting, memorable and sales-focused.

 

 

P.S. If you’d like some help, or just an opportunity to chat through your marketing options, simply BOOK YOUR BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGY SESSION HERE. I’ll ask you some important questions, then respond with my best suggestions, without obligation.