Do you listen hard to be heard?

You speak with your mother differently than with your kids. You order a steak at Morton’s differently than a burger in the drive-thru. It’s context and agenda: right words, right place.

Same goes for your advertising: Contextual sensitivity in your advertising speaks a level of understanding beyond words: listen how customers are listening and speak to it.

Speak to everyone, no one hears you.

This came charging home this week while working on a series of ads for a new client. We’re advertising to commercial and residential customers. Within those, there’s repair, replacement, and new product sales. I’m creating six new ads that will replace ONE.

Over-stuffing is a common advertising blunder. Ads that were born focused become muddled by having one more thing after another weaseled into them. The fatter the message, the less muscle, the less impact.

Advertising works to the degree it answers the question of an engaged listeners mind. A homeowner wouldn’t ask about easy online ordering or job site delivery. A builder isn’t wondering about 24-hour repair response.

One question. One answer.  One size fits all sells no one.

One message, many angles of approach

Being heard is the responsibility of the speaker. To understand their listening, pay attention to where your customers are coming from: what matters to them, what are they trying to accomplish, where are they in the buying cycle. Communicating to specific listening determines if you’ll be heard.

While some customers want it Joe Friday fast: just the facts, others love to bond before trusting you with their money. Even others are simply ready to buy and don’t need to be sold. How well do you speak to each of them?

Wizard of Ads Partner Dave Young demonstrates the one message point clearly in a presentation he made to the Wyoming Governor’s Conference on Tourism:

Be a customer for a moment. Think about your last satisfactory buying experience. Did they listen first? Did they respond in a way that made you feel heard?

If you were in a hurry, they got you through quickly. If you wanted to linger and learn, they  demonstrated and discussed. They identified your listening and spoke to it. Good advertising works the same way.

Let’s play a game

Here’s a game you can play with advertising: next time you encounter an over-stuffed “attention everyone” ad, see how many different ads you could make from it. Better yet, share your answers here. I’m betting we can run up big numbers.