Ten quotes that will help your business
By: Dianne Vanstone
Tags: Business Strategy, Quotes, Copywriting, Marketing Strategies, Copywriting Tips

Inspiring quotes to help you improve your marketing, grow your business and make more money.

Image by Daniel Nebreda from Pixabay

Give people what they want

“You can have everything you want in life if you will help enough people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar

Zig Ziglar was an incredibly successful and honest businessman, and he’s proof that if you offer products or services that genuinely add value to someone’s life then you’re onto a winner. The truth sells, and it’s your most powerful asset.

It’s not about you

“People aren’t interested in you. They’re interested in themselves.” Dale Carnegie

If the first page of your website is all about you and how great you are, your customers will get bored. It’s not about you, and how many years you’ve been in business, it’s about what you can do to help your customers. Even your brand story page should be about how you solved a specific problem. The hero is your customer, you’re the trusted sidekick who will help your hero achieve a better future.

Make a good first impression

“On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.” David Ogilvy

This is from the ‘Father of Advertising’ and he gets straight to the point. People are busy and they want information quickly. Each piece of writing, on your website, adverts and marketing materials, needs to grab attention, get the reader to stop and read the next sentence. It has to appeal to your reader’s self-interest and shout about the benefits to them. Don’t waste the opportunity.

Be focused

“So, before you begin the writing, be sure you know the purpose or mission or objective of every piece of content that you write. What are you trying to achieve? What information, exactly, are you trying to communicate? And why should your audience care?” Ann Handley

Ann Handley is a digital marketing pioneer, and she knows her stuff. Being focused is easier if you make a list of the messages you want to convey to your customers. Put them in priority order and work out where they are best placed.

Take a look at your website and imagine you’re a customer. Make sure every blog post, social media post and web-page has a purpose that adds value to your customers.

Make it clear to your customers what you want them to do with a clear call to action. Schedule an appointment, look at our new collection, sign up for our newsletter… think in terms of what you want to achieve and the benefits to your audience.

Be clear and avoid jargon

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Elmore Leonard

It’s easy to forget that you’re not writing to your customers, you’re having a conversation with them. If you were talking to them face-to-face would you use jargon and try to impress them with big words? I know you wouldn’t. Instead you’d talk openly and honestly with them about what you do and how you can help them. If your marketing materials don’t reflect that kind of conversation, you’re not communicating effectively.

Make relevant statements

“We have become so accustomed to hearing everyone claim that his product is the best in the world, or the cheapest, that we take all such statements with a grain of salt.” Robert Collier

Big statements often fall flat, and provoke resistance.

We’re the most established business — who cares? What do you do for me?

We’re the cheapest on the market — who cares? You might be the worst quality product.

We’re the best in the world — I’ll be the judge of that.

You won’t find better on the market — challenge accepted!

Don’t overplay it and, as with any statement, make sure it’s customer-centric and focuses on the benefits your customers will receive.

Communicate directly with your customers

“I’ve learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.” Leo Burnett

Trust the people who are helping you build your brand. Advertising is key and you might hire a copywriter and designer to create those adverts for you. Your role is to enthuse those professionals about your brand and decide what messages you want to promote. Their expertise is creating adverts they know will work. You might want to add extra sales messages to one advert, but think of each advert as one message. Create separate campaigns for each message you want to shout about.

Make it urgent

“Believe me; nothing works as well on the web as deadlines.” Clayton Makepeace

Creating urgency, to motivate your customers to action, is a proven technique and one of the highest paid copywriters of our time knew this well. There’s lots of ways to make something look urgent, from ticking timers on websites, great headlines, targeted email campaigns and carefully timed reminders.

Advertise

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing, but nobody else does.” Steuart Henderson Britt

We all know this, but it’s easy to underestimate how much you need to promote yourself. The good thing is that there are so many ways to advertise. You can promote your brand, products and services with paid adverts, on local listings pages, social media posts, print adverts and so much more. It doesn’t have to cost the earth either.

Work on it

“Everyone wants to climb the mountain, but the big difference between those at the top and those still on the bottom is simply a matter of showing up tomorrow to give it just one more shot.” Gary Halbert

This is true for almost every aspect of building a business. It is particularly true when it comes to marketing. Your website is never ‘finished’, you need to maintain it and update it with great blog posts. It’s no good just having social media accounts you have to post consistently and engage with your customers. A marketing strategy isn’t set in stone, keep trying new things to get better results. Keep working at it.