I was on Twitter a few nights ago as I began writing a new blog entry and realised that what I was writing was lacking something. So I asked my fellow Twitterers, what was their most pressing marketing question. I only got one reply, but hey, I only have 271 followers so I don’t suppose it was a bad response. Anyway here is the answer to the question.

How can you market without coming across as too pushy? What’s a good balance?

In some respects marketing has to be a bit “pushy” as you want to people to take action as a result of your marketing efforts. If you are too considered and try too hard to be nice in your marketing copy then you probably won’t get the results you want. I recently got a direct mail letter that went something like this. I have replaced the product with the word widget to spare any blushes.

“If you were considering buying a new widget, then perhaps you might take the time to take a look at our website. I understand if you are busy and don’t have the time to do this, so I have also included a brochure that I hope you may find interesting.”

The words might, perhaps, busy and may, are all included which makes the copy comes across as hesitant and weak. The writer was probably trying not to be too pushy, but unfortunately succeeded in not eliciting a response at all. But in marketing sometimes you have to be more explicit, we are bombarded by marketing messages from the time we get up from the time we go to bed. So you need to make sure that you get your message across, and the best way to do that is to appeal to people’s emotions, their needs and their wants.

You don’t need to be pushy, but you do need to be persuasive. You need to make the person on the receiving end of your marketing want to take action and feel that there is some benefit in either buying the product or service right now, or at the very least getting in contact with you to find out more. You need to do the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) test, and check that you marketing campaign has something in it for the person reading or listening. If it doesn’t then you need to rethink what you are doing.

As a final note make sure that you use words that prompt people to take action, the French have an imperative tense with words such as Allez! (go) which force action. So do the same in your marketing with words like…

• Discover
• Find out
• Open now
• Call today
• Take action
• Don’t delay
• Act now

Also remember to use emotive words that have more of an effect on people than, perhaps, might or maybe, such as

• Amazing
• Immediately
• Exclusive
• Exciting
• Excellent
• Rare
• Reveal
• Superior
• Limited
• Remarkable
• Valuable

In essence you do have to be persuasive when marketing your products and services and also make it really clear what you want the recipient to do as a result. And if this is done in an appropriate way it shouldn’t come across as pushy but stimulate the emotions of the receipient and guide them to take action.

Take a look at these other posts which are related

Buyology - Marketing is all in the mind

5 simple ways to boost marketing effectiveness