Dumb it down a wee bit...

I had a wonderful conversation ketching (????) up with a friend that I have not chatted with in a while. She is in the nursing industry, and after a few, “hey congrats on this and that” she said; “what is it that you exactly do Chris, I don’t understand?” Ah, ha...my wake-up call!

I immediately went into “oh no” mode. Have I failed at making my message clear and simple for everyone to understand? She was like... “oh no don’t worry, I am not in that industry, it’s ok.” I then explained, no it isn’t ok, I need to make sure anyone consuming my content understands my message.

First off, I LOVE THIS... I love the honest feedback from someone saying, “ I have no idea what you do!” This gives me the ability to get my message on point, its time to clean up my content and speak clearly on my objectives.

So with this being said. How do we fix our message? The first thing I am going to do is get hyper clear on what my goals and objectives are. Then I will reverse engineer it to the ridiculous. The message I speak should be so simple that a 7th grader get’s it. We need to make our information easily digestible.

With all the noise on Social Media sites and competition to be heard, it is vital that we are CLEAR. I really look forward to the task at hand, code word “r?cleanup!”

Something to consider when you are trying to be heard.

Make it easier for your audiences to hear and act on your company’s marketing messages:

1. Always default to the simplest level of information first.
2. Minimize the mental activity required by readers.
3. Don’t demand too much effort from readers.

Here’s how applying those 3 ideas can sharpen up your marketing message.

Always default to the simplest message

Start communications with a short message. It’s 7 seconds, 23 words or less.

Cut the clutter throughout your communications. Cut out every extra word, avoid unnecessary elements and eliminate visual clutter. To customers, less clutter means more clarity.

Have a clear intent about what you want your customers to do after they consume each piece of content.

• What’s next for them, exactly?
• Do you want them to watch a video?
• Read a blog?
• Subscribe?
• Chat?
• Email?
• Call?

Then, make that next step clear. To be clear what should happen next to your audience, first, you have to get it clearly yourself. Then, only give as much information as your audience needs to take that next step, no more.

Minimize mental activity required

Mental activity is also called cognitive load. It’s the amount of mental tax you charge customers to accomplish their goals on your website. The tax includes demanding activities such as perception, memory and problem-solving.

No one will pay too high a tax to consume your marketing messages.

So break your information into simple chunks. Just like a computer or a mobile network, a human can process only so much information at a time.

Don’t serve chunks that are bigger than their capacity! If you do, you’ll bring that spinning wheel look in their eyes. And soon they’ll click away.

Break up your message into short packets, avoiding TMI (too much information).

Ask yourself:

• How much reading is too much to require?
• How much effort does the website demand of customers, compared with how much reward they hope to receive?

Estimate the audience’s expectation of reward and divide it by the effort required. Here’s the equation:

To apply this idea, ask:

• How do you offer high enough rewards by answering the WIIFM question – What’s In It For Me?
• How do you lower the reader’s effort? How do you make your content concise, compelling and crystal-clear?
• How can the expectation of rewards exceed the effort required to achieve a score of 1 or more?

Help out your audience: use memory aids. Use familiar phrases, rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration to make content easier to remember.

Go even farther with mnemonic devices. For example, kids learn the English alphabet quicker and better when they learn the alphabet song.

When you alphabetize a list, do you still hear the song in your head: ABCDEFG? Or, if a word begins with N, perhaps you can hear the song’s rhythm of LMNOP?

Don’t require too much effort.

Make your marketing messages highly readable. Stick with short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs.

Test the readability of your text to make sure it reads easily. The best grade level of 6.8, so most people can read it easily.

Avoid acronyms, jargon, technobabble, and gobbledygook. They erect walls between you and your audience, which your audience may not make the effort to climb over.

Maximize your audience, especially if you do business where English is not the native language. For global companies, your audience may include not only 375 million native speakers of English but also 375 million people who speak English as a second language.

Finally, serve up your message cleanly – in a clean layout. Use pictures and visuals to capture eyeballs. Break up copy with visual elements, short paragraphs, subheads, bullets, and blurbs.

The R4method is here to help you with the retention and reactivation of your client list. We do this by increasing your reviews, gaining referral partners and rewarding all clients along the way. Most business owners I consult with do not have proper follow up sequences in place to insure customers are "raving fans." If you are interested in learning more, our dedicated team located in Santa Barbara California are ready to help you.

“If you are not following up, you are being left behind.” c.s.

Bee Deep Bee Deep Bee Deep, that’s all Folks!