How About Some Pie?
- June 13, 2011
- Posted by: Rochelle
- Category: Marketing + Selling
Everybody loves apple pie. Just look at that photo: don’t you want a slice right now?
If you baked pies, selling would be simple. You’d pack your site and your marketing goodie bag with photos: plain crust, lattice crust, cream, meringue, a la mode. You’d tell an engaging story about how you came to sell these very special pies. And, you’d make sure your packaging reinforced the story.
You need to sell pie.
You must make your offerings tangible and “tasty”. Give potential clients a bite—show them the experience of working with you. Some rules of thumb…
Ditch the purchased photos of people in suits, carrying briefcases or listening intently in a conference room. Their plastic perfection isn’t real and everyone knows that. Do you want to start off with a lie?
What is your sweet spot? Are you a powerful litigator whose strength is courtroom theatrics? Video should be your friend—a professionally produced piece showing you in action or addressing your potential clients. Or maybe you’re an employee engagement consultant—wouldn’t prospects value seeing you in action?
Words can be equally powerful if they’re carefully crafted to showcase your brand. And you don’t use too many. Think blogs and case studies and short articles on your sweet spot. Describe your services with strong “mouth feel” words. Testimonials are mostly wasted space unless they are valued names to your audience.
Invest in great design. Which means design that works—design that visually (and technologically) translates your unique positioning to the right audience. Choose your design team with great care (more on this next week) to get it right the first time.
So. How about some pie?
3 Comments
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Who does not like pie?
Important advice whether you “play” to a mass, narrow or niche market.
And even where you settle on a theme and a design, no reason it cannot evolve over time to something that further sharpens one’s identify and message. Just as we never cease to learn, we need to be open to such self-adjustments. And nothing is wrong with adaptation of ideas and concepts found elsewhere.
Great points (especially the video part!) I did get an inadvertent chuckle – when I read “Just look at that photo: don’t you want a slice right now?”, I glanced right at the picture of you. A moment of pause. Then I realized you meant the pie! That is what you meant, right? – Richard
Corey–exactly! Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Richard–yes, I definitely meant the pie 🙂