reynoldswriting.com Blog

Entrepreneurship has been good to me, in more ways than one. I regularly write for independent representatives who sell insurance, health products, packing and shipping services, you name it, as franchisees or independent representatives of a major national brand.

Wait a minute, I hear you saying. (Or maybe not, but humor me.) This person sells a nationally recognized product or service and still needs marketing content? Surely an industry leader with a zillion-dollar marketing budget pumps out all the web content and print marketing collateral it needs to remain visible year in and year out. Surely such a household name can sustain its own marketing momentum.

Well, that’s absolutely right. A big-name franchise can take care of itself — but does it take care of you, the independent business owner?

I can’t tell you how many times a client has said to me, “I sell XYZ National and they give me all this marketing content that explains what it is, what it does and how to buy it. But none of this stuff promotes ME.” If you’re selling that household name in a major metropolitan area, chances are you can find a thousand others selling the exact same thing — with the exact same cookie-cutter marketing copy. If you don’t do something to make yourself stand out, you’ll never emerge from that crowd of anonymous salespeople pushing the same goods with the same company colors and the same business card and the same everything else.

Sameness will render you invisible. Fight sameness by branding yourself.

Say you sell insurance through a major national provider. Well, you don’t really have to go to bat for a company already enjoying enjoying instant recognizability and a great track record, do you? So instead you go to bat for yourself. Market yourself as an independent insurance expert and offer that national provider as the flagship of your product line. This approach also lets you bring in other, related products and services under the umbrella of your own brand. The result? Your business takes the center seat, not the 800-pound gorilla you sell.

If you represent a national franchise, find that unique spin on who you are and what you do that makes you the go-to guy for your product or service. Then announce that special quality to the world — through your own customized marketing.

For more about me, my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

As you might suspect from its title, Tim Burton’s 1996 film Mars Attacks! does not quite present the world as we know it. This nod to 1950s monster movies lives in its own special reality — a reality in which creepy Martians blast humans into skeletal husks with ray guns, the voice of Slim Whitman can turn said Martians’ heads into goo, and the President of the United States looks and sounds uncannily like Jack Nicholson. Weirdness reigns supreme as an all-star cast struggles to save Earth from a Martian invasion.

Yet even a fun-house mirror reflects a kind of truth. A prime example in this film is a scene that shows the Martians gunning people down in the streets right and left while broadcasting over a loudspeaker, “Don’t run! We are your friends!”

Ludicrous, yes. But people do it all the time, don’t they? I’m not talking about gunning each other down in the streets, though there seems to be plenty of that as well. I’m talking about mixed messages.

We do it all the time, often subconsciously. Our words say one thing, while our actions say something else. That guy giving the speech smiles serenely, but his hands are shaking. The lady testifying in court sounds absolutely sincere, but her eyes are darting nervously around the room. We do it in our everyday body language — and we do it in our marketing.

You might want to take a careful look at the various forms of messaging you employ on the Web or in your print marketing. Is the message congruent? For instance, does your website content scream excitement while the surrounding graphic design presents all the pizazz of Grandma’s faded wallpaper? Do you describe yourself as a sophisticated, upscale consultant while using whiz-bang terms better suited to a kid’s cereal box? Do you brand yourself as the friendly, caring choice in a tone that could refrigerate a side of beef?

An inconsistent message is no message at all. Conflicting statements cancel each other out to produce white noise, while statements that complement a single message amplify that message’s power. Want to make a specific impression? Align all the components of your marketing message into one unified clarion call. Otherwise you simply won’t hold people’s attention — with or without a ray gun.

Okay, maybe with a ray gun.

For more about me, my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.