============================================= COPYWRITER'S ROUNDTABLE #82 December 3, 2002 MAKING AN IMPRESSION: How To Train A Prospect To Remember Your Message ============================================= "A memory is what's left when something happens and does not completely unhappen." - Edward de Bono If you want to beef up your memory, get more sleep. Eat more protein. Practice memory games and tricks like using analogies and mnemonic devices. Simple enough. But how can you fortify the memory of your prospective customer? More specifically, how can you make sure your MESSAGE is something he can't forget? HOW MARKETERS GET REMEMBERED, A FLASHBACK In CR #65, I shared Sergio Zyman's warning on how NOT to get remembered as a marketer... Zyman, you'll recall, engineered a massive market-share grab for the Coca Cola Company. Before he came along, Coke had a disastrous marketing campaign that began: "I'd like to teach the world to sing..." (Insert hundreds of hand-holding Coke drinkers here) "In perfect harmony..." Lovely sentiment. Easy to recall, in itself. Unfortunately, singing in harmony did little to sell Coke. So Zyman re-tooled the entire strategy. He tossed the ambiguous "brand awareness" advertising and forced Coke's top dogs to compile a list of reasons why and when people would really enjoy a Coke. God bless 'em, they came up with no fewer than 35. Zyman helped an ad agency conjure up 35 different ads to make visual those reasons. Suddenly, Coke was back in business. Market-share exploded. I rehash the example for two reasons. First, because it goes to show that just because an ad itself gets remembered doesn't mean it will sell products. And second, because it illustrates there are much better ways to crack the same egg... NINE ESSENTIAL SECRETS OF MEMORABLE ADS At least one lesson from the Zyman example worth remembering is this.. BE VALUABLE: The Zyman campaign found 35 ways to show how Coke made you feel good on a hot day, went great with a hot dog at the ball park, was a reward worth having after a day of hard work, etc. It's no accident "benefit" is the watchword in selling. Think about it. Who are you most likely to remember? The friend that always helps you out... or the one who's never done you a lick of good? This is just the beginning. To stay memorable long enough to trigger a sale, you should also... BE CLEAR: I admit it... personally, I love a winding maze of ideas. But nothing pulls better than a simple, well-focused message. I don't mean 'be brief.' That's often only a symptom of the cure. Rather, I mean taking the extra time to find the bulls-eye before you fire your first shot. BE FIRST: The breakthrough marketing book "Positioning - The Battle For the Mind" made the case. If you can make a new claim, make it. Victory doesn't always go to the best. It often goes to the first to show up with a fresh message. INVENT A NEW TERM: An oft-quoted example comes from another beverage company, Miller Brewing. Sometime in the '70s or '80s, they started advertising their beer as "cold filtered." Guess what. ALL beer is cold filtered. But once Miller claimed it, nobody else could. Sales of Miller beer soared on the "news." BE EMOTIONAL: Lest you still doubt that all good sales pitches are emotional rather than logical, let's try the scientific explanation. Emotion raises adrenaline. Adrenaline kick starts your brain's amygdala. The amygdala wakes up your hippocampus. Your hippocampus starts pouring the cerebral concrete of memory. Make sense? BE VIVID: Don't you hate it when you get a client who won't let you write 'strong?' Yeah, me too. Fortunately, they don't usually last long. And for good reason. Anyone who's spent a fair amount of time this earth has learned that it's passion that makes the world go round. In copy, that means strong verbs. Gutsy promises. Bold opinions. Shrinking violets get trampled. BE REPETITIVE: Sad to say, many people just aren't as observant as we want them to be. They're not dumb, just busy. Ergo, if you've got a good sales offer, flaunt it. I've seen 16-page sales letters re-state the offer 6 and 7 times over. BE LARGER THAN LIFE: Quick, what's the relevance of your product in the scheme of the universe? The closer you can get to 'galactic' without sounding ludicrous, the better; "Just a vacuum? Why Madam, we're talking about a whole new way of LIFE! Allow me to demonstrate..." CLOSE HARD: You've heard it once, you've heard it athousand times. Every good sale closes with a crystal-clear, clarion call to action. Tell them HOW to buy ("Pick up your phone. Dial this number. Claire will answer. Tell her this...") Remind them WHY to buy. ("Remember, in 9 out 10 tests, only 'Blink Ocular Itching Cream' stopped uncontrollable eyelid twitches without causing blindness.") And urge them to buy now, before time runs out. ("I'm not sure how long supplies will last. We didn't expect this much demand. So I hope I'll hear from you today... if not sooner.") It's not their time that's on the line, incidentally. It's YOUR time to make the sale. Some study somewhere showed you've got about 14 days at MOST before even the most memorable sales message slips into the ether of information onslaught. Experience suggests even that figure is exceedingly generous. Or so I seem to remember. WHAT SCIENTISTS DON'T KNOW ABOUT MEMORY I recently came across two studies about memory that relate to the advice I'll give you later in this article. Be warned in advance: One of the studies completely contradicts the other. First, a report from a recent issue of "Current Directions in Psychological Science"... 1,800 people were asked by researchers to answer their recall of certain ads during top-rated TV programs. Some of the shows were non-violent. Others were full of shootings, car-chases, kitten juggling, and worse... By a vast majority those ads shown during popular but violent programs were all but FORGOTTEN by the viewers polled What's this tell you? Before you say "less blood-shed, more puppies and babies," you might want to check out the following contrary study from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Same intent, different result. 32 volunteers were given a list of vocabulary words to memorize. Afterward, half the group had to watch a graphic film of... believe it or not... A dentist yanking teeth. Dripping blood. Smoking drills. The works. The other half of the group -- lucky devils -- watched a less exciting film about how to properly brush your chompers. Then everyone was tested to see who could better remember the list of vocabulary words. Per "Nature News," the Netscape publication reporting this second study, can you guess who remembered the most? Surprisingly enough... It was the group subjected to the MOST gore. Go figure. I don't know WHAT this means. I'm no psychologist. Or neurologist. We can only hope, however, that there are better ways to evoke emotions in selling than blowing things up or -- God forbid -- pulling teeth. ******************************************* THE MISSING LINK: How Good Is Your Memory? Memory isn't wisdom. But what's wisdom without memory? Here are a few ways to improve yours (FREE, as usual): http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html