Last month at a seminar for marketing directors of banks, I held up an ad clipped from a newspaper. "Great Rates,"
shouted a large headline, accompanied by numbers and percents. "What kind of rates are these?" I asked. CD rates, several guessed. "But it doesn't say!" several participants concluded simultaneously.
"No, it doesn't say," I replied, "and you can't assume readers will know."
I then read aloud a phrase following an asterisk at the bottom of the ad: "'New money only': What does that mean?"
Participants came up with three possible definitions.
"Hmm, if you folks aren't sure what that means, how would potential customers know?"
Then we considered the home page of a bank based in North Carolina, where one of seven link options read "Small
Business" and another read "Corporate & Commercial." "If you are a $1 million incorporated business, which link
should you choose?" I asked.
Rueful smiles spread around the room.
Looking at your marketing copy from the customer's point of view requires stepping outside of what you know. It's
difficult - and essential.
CALLING ALL BANKERS: Learn the most common blunders at bank web sites and how you can turn yours into a magnet for new
customers, in a webinar I'm presenting November 16 for Bankers Online: http://www.bollearningconnect.com/profitableweb1104
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www.yudkin.com/marksynd.htm
A four-time Webby Awards judge, Marcia Yudkin is one of the world's top experts in the marketing effectiveness of web sites.
As the author of one of the first books published on marketing online, she spearheaded the first web site and Internet marketing campaign for her publisher Penguin USA in 1995. Her book Web Site Marketing Makeover describes how to attract and satisfy users so that they stay and do business.
Her 10 other books include 6 Steps to Free Publicity, Persuading on Paper and Smart Speaking. She has been featured in Success Magazine, Entrepreneur, Women in Business, dozens of newspapers around the globe, and four times in the Sunday Boston Globe.
Marcia Yudkin has been a syndicated columnist, a commentator on National Public Radio and moderator of popular online forums on how to attract business online. Her weekly newsletter, The Marketing Minute (www.yudkin.com/marksynd.htm), provides tips on creative marketing for tens of thousands of readers all over the world.
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