I found this article online a couple weeks back and realized it eloquently explained why so much small business marketing doesn’t work.

Regardless of your viewpoint on free trade, read what this guy says and really absorb it. Think about it. And then apply it or ask your marketing person to utilize this idea in your marketing. Remember, your customers are all human beings regardless if they are B2C or B2B. Human stories sell.

Excerpt from – Free Trade Advocates Face ‘Difficult Time’ Grant Gross, IDG News Service Sun Apr 6, 1:00 PM ETBackers of global trade need to tell better stories about its benefits, added Chris Padilla, Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Trade opponents often highlight individuals who’ve lost their jobs, he noted.“The opponents of trade tell stories; the proponents of trade break out charts and graphs,” Padilla said. “We won’t win that argument. We have to tell the human story of trade, and the human story of people who benefit from the global economy.”Padilla often tells the story of two women from South Carolina who used to sew jeans and lost their jobs. With U.S. government assistance, they were retrained and now work at a BMW plant and drive the luxury cars, he said.

PS if you use stories or case studies or “success stories” in your marketing, remember that it’s not a corporation reading these. It’s a flesh and blood human being who is thinking about themselves first and the company second.Don’t just tell what the benefit is to the company. Make sure you explain what the benefit was to the person who implemented the idea or plan. They got a promotion, they watched slaes in their division rise, “they got the satisfaction of watching the compnay double sales in a year”.

Bob McClain or WordsmithBob, has been a website copywriter in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, since 2000. He has focused on developing new, more effective approaches to web writing, web content, web copywriting and Search Engine Optimization. Starting with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Creative Writing from Metro State University in St. Paul, McClain has worked diligently to end the use of "corp-speak" and "technospeak" online. His approach is to “humanize” the Web, using real information to guide people to buy rather than turning websites into advertisements that people can easily ignore. McClain is also the creator of Cheap SEO Website Marketing, a website devoted to helping people with the best solutions to DIY SEO at an affordable cost with tips and software reviews. More at Cheap SEO Website Marketing

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Originally posted 2008-04-21 07:05:43. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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