Websites, marketing comms, sales comms… three steps to a “yes”

Want to persuade someone to do what you want?

Is there one best way to do it?

For example, is there one best way that covers all of these?

• Marketing communications – websites, posts, emails
• Sales communications – meetings, proposals, presentations
• Persuading stakeholders – your boss, team, colleagues
• Your family – children, spouse, partner

Well, there isn’t one way that always works (if only the world was that easy!)

But these three steps often do. They’re what I call my ABC approach:

• AFTERs – start by stating why the customer/colleague/friend will be better-off AFTER your communication (other words meaning the same thing include “benefits”, “value-add”, “their priorities”)
• Build certainty – give compelling evidence they’ll get these AFTERs
• Close – end by asking them to take an action

So, for a website:

• A – title each webpage with why the reader will be better-off AFTER (“How we’ll reduce your tax bill” is better than “our services”!)
• B – prove that you deliver your promise in the title – testimonials, case studies, top tips etc, to prove you reduce people’s tax bills
• Close – at the bottom, add a simple Call To Action button, making it obvious what they do next – “click here to read our top 10 tax tips”

In a proposal:

• A – title the proposal with their #1 AFTER – “how we’ll help you double your sales leads” is better than “our proposal”
• B – most of the rest of the proposal confirms how you’ll do it (milestones, deliverables and timelines), proves it will work (case studies) etc
• C – end with the action – “to accept this proposal, please sign page 3 and return it to X@Y.com”

Want your children to go to bed:

• A – “it’s time for me to read your favourite story upstairs” (much more likely to engage them, than by saying the word “bed”!)
• B – “if you’re in bed before I count to 10, I’ll read two chapters”
• C – “so, run upstairs NOW!”

Now, if you’ve had your first coffee this morning and are already ‘on it’, you might have noticed that this Tip started with A, then went through the B, it’s now time for the…

C = Action Point

1. Review some of your recent sales and marketing communications – websites, proposals, emails etc. Have you ABC-ed them?
2. For today’s “persuasion communications”, consider using ABC
3. For loads more hints to help you nail this, click here