Date 10/15/2007

How to use Marketing Syntax to avoid Cold Calling
by Eric Albertson
There are seven major secrets to getting more clients without cold-calling. Today, I am going to cover how to use Marketing Syntax.
In my experience, the key to success in Marketing is mastering the use of Marketing Syntax so that you are relevant, and people are interested in your marketing message and/or elevator speech.

Here's the Marketing Syntax that seems to work the best:
Target: Who are your ideal clients?
Problem: What is your prospect's issue or challenge?
Outcome: What result or outcome would they prefer?
Story (proof): Stories or case studies about moving from problem to outcome.
Benefits: What do clients get when they work with you?
Credibility: What qualifies you to do what you do.
Process: What do you actually offer and how does it work?
Call-to-action: What do you want them to do next?

Order is key. Consider the word art. Obviously it is constructed using the letters a, r, and t. Change the order and you change the meaning. For example rat does not convey the same message as art. Neither does tar. What a difference these changes make.
A painful story: what happens without marketing syntax
My mother was telling me about "inflammation" last week, with great passion. She was really worked up.
I asked her why it was a problem and how I would know if I had it. She couldn't tell me. I asked her what I would do about it if I had it. She couldn't tell me.
I asked her who was suggesting that it was a problem, and who they were suggesting it was a problem for. She couldn't tell me.
My mother can be a little vague and she sure doesn't follow marketing syntax.
Her conversation may have been something I needed to hear about, but she did not give me the information in a way that was relevant to me.
I love my mother, but I could hardly wait to get out of the conversation.
Before you write this off to the ramblings of a 78-year-old woman, this is little different from what I hear when I get most sales calls.
Some of you may be guilty of something like this. If your sales aren't good, you might want to take a look.
Marketing Syntax is the formula you want to consider using in all communications with your market when you want to be relevant, when you want to be heard, when you want to get attention, and when you want to get action. If you don't want those things, why are you communicating?
Here are the places where I use it and where I recommend its use:
Sales letters. Even a stunned monkey can write an effective sales letter if they follow the marketing syntax outline.
Sales presentations.
Proposals.
PowerPoint presentations. I teach this to my leadership clients at places like Microsoft and Intel. They use it and get consistently great results.
Web pages (check out any page on www.performanceleadershipgroup.com, and you will find marketing syntax buried in the page).
Brochures.
Email.
Memos.
Marketing communications of any kind.
Elevator speech material.
Almost everywhere, when I am marketing and selling.

Besides the obvious "does-it-work" test, the other questions you want to ask are these:
Does my target market have this pain or problem?
Does my solution make this pain or problem go away?
Do I have a concise and interesting story about somebody who had the problem where I, or my company, made the problem go away?
Can I clearly and concisely state two to four benefits of my solution?
Can I establish my credibility? Just being employed by the company, speaking well, or having delivered the solution before is all you need.
Can you simply, and very briefly, outline your process in one to two sentences?
Can you simply ask for the target to take some next step that moves them forward in a way that gets you both what you want?
Does everything above make sense?

Do people say, "Tell Me More," when they hear it?

It is like getting the focus right with a set of binoculars. You dial to the right and then to the left, each adjustment is smaller than the one before. Soon you have a clear picture of what you want to see.