Testing the “We” In Your Marketing Materials

You have spent hours, days, maybe even months perfecting your marketing materials. You have different pieces geared toward different audiences. But are these pieces truly focused on ‘them’ or have you fallen victim to creating materials that are full of ‘we?’ Most of your target audiences only care about how you can help them solve their problems. How can you speak to their pain? If you want them to do more business with you or send you more clients than you must be focused on them. The words in your marketing materials, whether they are an advertisement, flyer, postcard, or website will prove how much you are really focused on your customers.

Below, follow the steps to determine if your materials are customer focused or if you are talking more about yourself. If can be a painful discovery, but a necessary one for bringing in new clients.

The ‘We’ Test

⦁ Start by grabbing a piece of your marketing postcard or literature. Try to choose one that has more content, so you can truly measure your message. There are two types of words you are going to test your message for: 1) customer-focused words and 2) self-focused words.

⦁ Count how many times you see the words you, your, yourself, you’ve and you’re throughout your marketing piece. These are your customer-focused words.

⦁ Now, count how many times you use the words I, me, my, mine, myself, our, us, and the name of your company (if mentioned). These are (gulp) your self-focused words.

⦁ Now for the moment of truth…first, tally up both totals for your customer-focused words and your self-focused words. Then divide the total number of customer-focused words by the total sum of both customer- and self-focused words. This will be the percentage of customer-focused words represented in your material. Now reverse this calculation to determine your percentage for your use of self-focused words.

Let’s break this down in an example. Let’s say your total number of customer-focused words is 12 and the total number of self-focused words is 28.

⦁ Customer-focused words (12) / sum of customer and self-focused words (12+28=40) = 30% customer-focused rate.

⦁ Self-focused words (28) / sum of customer and self-focused words (12+28=40) = 70% self-focused rate.

If this were an accurate representation of your marketing material, you would have just discovered that you speak about yourself almost 2 ½ times more than you speak about your customer. This would be a major red flag to edit your messaging to be more customer-focused.

If you proved that you are indeed more customer-focused with your marketing-congratulations! You really do focus on your customer and their needs. If not, now you know what you must work on going forward. It might be tough to swallow, but you are already on your way to turning your marketing around and bringing in more clients.

Titan List is a full service Advertising and Design agency specializing in Direct Mail, Mortgage Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Website / Graphic Design. Titan List has been around since 1998, and has a team of highly qualified individuals with experience in the marketing trends that fit your business. Unlike other agencies that source their work out, Titan List & Mailing handles the entire campaign in-house. Looking for a special list of data for your business? We can customize any data list for your company.