I was recently in a rather heated debate with a colleague over the pros and cons of HTML emails.

It got me thinking about the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings we have about the things we do in our businesses – and about how our beliefs, thoughts, and feelings don’t always hold up when we compare them to what actually happens when we do those things.

For me, the fun of marketing is all about understanding what’s really happening when, for instance, someone receives an email from me.  Are the things I believe about how they’ll respond to that email really true?  What happens if I tinker with what I’m sending out?  Can I confirm the results in multiple tests?

With that in mind, here are three and a half counter-intuitive things I’ve tried and tested.  They’re likely to improve your email response rates just as they did mine.  But don’t take my word for it.  Test them for yourself! 

Note that I’m saying COUNTER-intuitive.  This isn’t about obvious stuff like good headlines and strong calls to action.  This is about the less-obvious things that may be tripping you up.

1.  Drop the pictures

I know “they” say that images in your blog posts or emails improve your response rate.  And that can be true, but there’s a very big IF attached:  IF the picture is immediately, totally, and clearly relevant to what you’re writing about.

It can be surprisingly difficult to find pictures that really fulfill that requirement.

Meanwhile, even if your pictures are 100% relevant to your topic, there are other problems with images that can damage your response rates.  I went into them in detail in a recent blog post, so I won’t cover them again here.  The post is called “3 Ways Pictures Keep Your Readers from Reading your Email,” and you can find it at http://www.svahaconcepts.com/blog/communicating-your-message/3-ways-pictures-keep-your-readers-from-reading-your-email

2. Don’t mask URLs

I know.  Those clear URLs – like the big long link I have in the paragraph above – are oooo-gly.  And the whole point of HTML emails is that you can make them purty.

But what’s the point of pretty if you aren’t getting the results you want?  If you include a link in your email, presumably it’s because you want your readers to click on it.

I’ve done several studies on this.  Several, because I couldn’t believe the results I was getting. 

The clear answer from my tests was that people will click on the long, ugly URL far more often than on a link that’s embedded in text.

In other words, people <em>don&rsquo;t</em> click when the URL looks like this:  “3 Ways Pictures Keep Your Readers from Reading your Email“.

My guess is that people are more comfortable clicking on a link when they feel like they know where they’re going.  Or it could be that when the link is obviously a URL, it’s more obviously something to be clicked on.

The relevant point is, don’t mask your URLs.  Even if they’re long and ugly, put them in.  And then you can see for yourself if you get better results.

3 plus 1/2. Drop the formality

Got something important to say?  REALLY want your reader to do something in response to your message?

Drop the formality in your layout and your language.  (That’s how this tip rates the extra half:  it’s referring to both format and writing style.)

I know it’s hard.

It’s easy to feel like your carefully-laid-out newsletter template is a key aspect of your brand and your credibility.  It’s easy to worry that you won’t be taken seriously if you break the strict rules of grammar your high-school English teacher stuffed into your brain.

But a casual email-between-friends style is more likely to be read – especially if it’s not what you normally send.

When you write as if you’re writing to a friend, your readers will respond accordingly. So keep the formal template for your articles, but when you have something important to say (such as a key marketing message), drop the formality and go for casual.

Counter-intuitive is fun!

I know it may seem odd (or … counter-intuitive!), but playing with this sort of thing can be a lot of fun.

It’s all an experiment.  Make like a mad scientist and try things out.  After all, you can always go back to what you’re doing now – but the only way to get better results is to experiment with something new.

And if – or rather, when – someone unsubscribes, remember that whoever it was never going to be one of your ideal clients. 

“Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.”  David Sedaris (1956-), American humorist, comedian, best-selling author, and radio contributor.  From an interview in the Louisville Courier-Journal, June 5, 2005.

Excuse me – have you noticed that your business is growing?

Your business might be just a gleam of an idea, or it could be a decades-long success story.

You might have had a fantastic year in 2011, or you could have felt like the year was a struggle, or you may be feeling dull and stagnant.

No matter what – your business is growing.  It may be growing in obvious ways, or the idea of growth may feel totally counter-intuitive, or you may be somewhere in between.  But it IS growing.

Because that’s what businesses do:  they grow.

Unless you get in the way.  Then, yes, it’s true:  some fail.

(And yes, of course some businesses are so unconnected with their customers that they cannot succeed.  I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about you, because if you’re reading this, you’ve got at least some connection with your best clients and with your business.)

Business growth doesn’t always show up the way you expect.  Sometimes it looks and feels like something’s gone wrong.  Sometimes it seems as if you’re being fickle or unfocused.  Sometimes it feels vulnerable and scary.

Let’s take a look at three ways your business could be growing even if you haven’t noticed, and then see how you can work with your feelings of anxiety and gain clarity about what’s developing.

1.  Feeling stuck?

When your enthusiasm or your income seem stagnant – or even as if they’re going backwards – a lot of anxious questions can start running through your mind.

Where did the passion go?  What happened to all the clients who had been lining up at the door?  What if this is the beginning of the end – what will you do?

Those questions are frightening – and distracting.

A slow time in your business – whether it’s slow in terms of your personal feelings of engagement, or in your revenue stream, or both – doesn’t necessarily mean that everything’s coming unravelled.

It’s more likely that something new is stirring.  Something is taking shape somewhere just out of sight; new roots are developing and new shoots are getting ready to sprout.

2.  Feeling overwhelmed?

Sometimes you’re feeling exactly the opposite of stuck. 

Sometimes it’s obvious that your business is trying to grow.  You have so many ideas you don’t know where to start or how to manage them.

When you feel like you’re trying to harness a tiger or ride a whirlwind, it’s easy to feel anxious, and it’s difficult to focus. 

3.  Feeling vulnerable?

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in business for decades, the stirrings of something new can be unnerving.

You might wonder if this new direction will drive away the people who’ve been your best clients up till now.

The depth and power of what’s tugging on your sleeve – or on your heart – might feel raw and vulnerable.

It can seem risky to step out of a business model (or a job!) that you put time and effort into developing and that’s been working for you.

And all that brings up anxiety and doubt.

Give your experience space

Trying to contain or change how you feel may seem like the logical thing to do, but in reality you only spin your wheels, spending all your energy wrestling with your feelings instead of creating clarity and focus.

So give the anxiety space to be.  Suppressing it just drives it underground, where it will nibble away at those developing roots and shoots, delaying the process of growth.

At the same time, don’t let anxiety run your business for you. 

Instead, take some time to ask yourself, with an open mind, an open heart, and plenty of curiosity, what might be developing and where you most want to focus your energy.

You know more than you think

Ideas, thoughts, and feelings tend to swirl around inside.

Getting them out of your mind and onto paper helps you tune in to what’s really happening, what’s trying to grow, and how it wants to unfold.

Writing can feel like just one more challenge – but writing to discover is a powerful way to create a dialogue with yourself and with your business’s impulse to develop.

It’s not about writing an article, an essay, or anything “finished” at all.

It’s about discovery!

You know more than you think you know, and this process helps uncover that deeper knowledge.

Here’s how it works.

Open up a document on your computer or take out a blank piece of paper.

Staring a blank page in the eye is daunting, so take off the blankness by asking yourself a question.  Write it at the top of the page.

You might ask, “What roots are growing in my business?” or “How does my business want to grow and develop?” or simply, “What’s calling me?”

These are just examples.  Ask whatever question is uppermost for you.  Be sure it’s open-ended, curious, and positive.  (Which means, don’t ask “why is my business struggling,” or questions of that nature.)

Then write freely, open-heartedly, without editing yourself.  Blither onto the page.  Ramble.  Be redundant.  Don’t think about what you’re writing. 

Enjoy yourself.

I promise you that you’ll be surprised by what you already know about how your business wants to grow and develop.

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore.”  Andre Gide (1869-1951), French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947.

In the previous article, “Did You Learn from Last Year’s Successes,” I explained why I’m not a fan of formal plans and concrete goals. As I described in that article, they can be a painful set-up for feelings of struggle, inadequacy, and failure.

I also think that too much structure tends to be destructive to creativity, limiting your ability to notice surprises, move with the flow of how things want to unfold, and follow unexpected paths.  To me, those surprises, unexpected paths, and the continuing excitement and wonder that come when I allow my business to unfold naturally – that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Which isn’t to say that I never make any sort of plans or that I never establish goals.  That would be way too far in the opposite direction, and certainly unlikely to lead to success.

The key is flexibility: plans as guidelines, not rules, and goals as intentions, not hard-edged “gotta make it happen” statements.

If you’d like to try this approach, here are some things to consider as you look towards the upcoming year.

Three questions

Using what you discovered from your work with the last article, ask yourself three questions.  (If you missed the article, you can find it here:  http://svahaconcepts.com/articles/alignment-with-your-message/did-you-learn-from-last-years-successes)

1.  What do you want more of this year?

2.  What do you want less of this year?

3.  What would you most like to accomplish this year?

As you ask them – and especially as you ask #3 – don’t frame your answers as traditional goals, plans, or resolutions.

Think flexibility.  Think soft edges.  Allow yourself to feel what seems right, instead of thinking it through or adhering strictly to logic.

How would it feel?

Imagine how it would feel to experience the reality of your answers to those questions.

Experience how it feels to think about having these things.  There could be excitement – but there will also be doubts, concerns, and anxieties.

For instance, if your answer to question #1 is that you’d like to serve more people doing work that you love … does that bring up concerns that you might feel overwhelmed – so busy that there would be no time for you in all that work for your clients?

It’s important to recognize and acknowledge these doubts, concerns, and anxieties, because they’re what get in the way of being able to have what you want.

The most important question

So now you know what you want more of, what you want less of, and what you’d like to accomplish.

You have a sense of what that would feel like from both sides: the excited wow, yeah side as well as the not-so-confident oh crap side.

Now ask the most important question of all.

What do you need in order to not feel that oh crap feeling? 

What support do you need?  What knowledge do you need?  What feelings do you need?

For instance, you might feel that growing your business and taking it to the next level would be very vulnerable and risky.  Perhaps you don’t believe you have the confidence you need to be that far “out there” in your work.

To gain that confidence, you might hire coaching support.  Or you might choose to gather some really fantastic testimonials from your clients.  Or you could take up meditation so that you can feel more grounded.

These are three very different responses to the same question.  The point is to explore what would help you feel what you need to feel and experience what you want to experience.

I can’t tell you what you need in order to reach those places and have those things that you want.  Only you can answer that question.

But I can tell you that if you don’t ask the most important question, what do you need? – and ask it from all levels, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual – you won’t get there.

“You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.” Warren Beatty (1937-), American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director.

With thanks to Lissa Boles of http://www.thesoulmap.com for reminding me of the most important question in her lovely Christmas Day video gift to her subscribers.

This time of year seems to invite us, as individuals and as business owners, to take stock.

What got done last year?  What didn’t get done?  What do we want to do in the upcoming year?

Traditional planning invites us to set “stretch” goals – to challenge our ideas of what’s possible for us.  And while I appreciate the intention – challenging ourselves to stretch and grow is a good thing – when we set a specific, hard-edged goal around something as tender and vulnerable as growth … let’s just say it tends to end badly.

In fact, most annual assessments and most planning are done in ways that end up creating feelings of frustration and failure.  Goals set with enthusiasm last year may not have been reached.  Dreams and plans for achievement were derailed.  And we’re left wondering what went wrong, feeling like we screwed up.

I’m not suggesting that we should just float along from moment to moment without any structure.  But I do think that there are less self-destructive, more productive ways to first evaluate what’s happened, and then consider what we want to achieve going forward.

In this article, I describe new ways to look at what unfolded in your business – and in your life, if you so choose – over the last year.  In the next article, I’ll talk about how you can foster your creativity and growth over the upcoming year without setting yourself up for struggle and frustration.

Ready?  Let’s take a look at this past year!

What actually happened?

Whether or not you went through a formal planning process at the beginning of the year, you undoubtedly had some expectations and ideas about what you wanted to accomplish.

But as I mentioned, evaluating your year against those expectations isn’t particularly effective.

Instead of looking at what you expected to happen, look at what actually happened.  Don’t compare it to those expectations.  Don’t judge it in any way.  Just get an accurate, honest understanding of what really happened.

What worked well?

It’s easy to focus on the mistakes you’ve made and the things you didn’t get around to.  In fact, it seems to be a cultural imperative to spend time understanding those mistakes and missed goals, dissecting them into painful details so you’ll never make them again, and in the process to call yourself any number of nasty names out of frustration and self-anger.

Not very productive.  And certainly not very enjoyable.

It’s a lot more fun to repeat your successes.

Yet we seldom stop to look at what worked well.  In fact, we generally don’t give a second thought to the things that went well.  After all, it worked out right, it’s over, let’s move on and pay attention to what’s next.

So – stop!  As you look back at what actually happened, note the things that went well.  What are you proud of?  What made you feel joyful, happy, and good about yourself?

What can you learn from these successes of yours?  What can you bring forward and keep doing more of – so you can have more success?

What was surprising?

We’re taught not to brag, boast, or appear arrogant.  And so it can be startlingly difficult to notice, even privately, the things we did well, the ways in which we succeeded.

So take another look from another perspective.

What surprised you?  What was unexpected?

While it’s true that unexpected surprises can sometimes be the result of mistakes, you’ve undoubtedly already spent more than enough time reviewing those mistakes.

What was surprisingly good?  What was unexpectedly fun?

And what is there to learn from those good, fun experiences?  How can you bring this sense of fun and enjoyment into the new year, into your ongoing work and the new projects you have in mind?

Relax

None of this should feel like a struggle or cause any feelings of tension or strain. 

This isn’t about forcing anything.  It’s not even about planning anything for the future.  (That comes in the next article!) 

It’s about taking stock with appreciation instead of with criticism.  It’s about recognizing what you’ve accomplished not just for the sake of recognition (though that’s important too), but so that you can learn from it:  learn more about what you’re good at, learn more about what comes naturally for you, learn more about what’s fun and enjoyable, and learn more about what others appreciate in your work.

Don’t stop learning from your mistakes.  And never forget to learn from your successes.

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”  Maya Angelou (1928-), American author and poet with over 30 honorary degrees and nominations for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize

It’s harsh but true:  your website – from your home page content to that sales letter you slaved over, trying to get every word exactly right – mostly doesn’t get read.

People skim.  They bounce through those carefully-crafted paragraphs, picking out a word here, a headline there.

If you’re lucky, something will catch their attention and they’ll pause to read more closely.

But you don’t have to rely on luck.  There are a few things you can do that will significantly increase your chances of being read, not just skimmed. 

Here are five surprisingly easy tweaks you can make today – and start getting better response to your website.  The first three are design-related; the last two are about content.  All are important!

1. Increase the font size

This is especially important if anyone in your target audience is over 40.

Increase the font size!  Your standard paragraph font should be at least 15 pixels.  It’s no fun to squint at the screen.  Give your readers’ eyes a break, and they’ll repay you by sticking around to read what you’ve written.

2. Decrease the line length

When you increase the font size, the number of words per line will automatically decrease; with a bigger font, fewer words fit on a line.

However, you may still need to change your website’s display width.  For maximum readability and comprehension, you want about 12 to 15 words per line.  Of course, with today’s trend towards fluid layouts, that can be easier said than done.  Nonetheless, try to keep your lines no more than 15 words long for best results.

3. Drop the colored background

I won’t even try to read a website that’s in reverse type (for instance, white words on a black or blue background).  It literally hurts my eyes.  And I’m not alone; I’ve heard many people make the same comment.

I’ve also heard many people say they like the design feature.  Okay, fine.  I agree that it can look cool and edgy.  But what’s the real purpose of your website – to be looked at, or to be read?

Black or dark gray print on a white or very pale cream (think “eggshell” in paint colors) is best for readability.

4. Facilitate effective skimming

People are still going to skim, no matter how thoughtful you are about font size, line length, and font/background color combinations. 

Make it easy for them to get your message even when they skim.

It’s pretty obvious that the skimmer’s eye is going to land on the parts of the page that stand out:  the headlines and bolded content.

You can use that to your advantage with one neat little trick.

Read just the headlines and bolded content on your page.  Does it tell a coherent, compelling story all by itself, without reading anything else?

If so, you’ve got a good chance of catching the interest of your best potential clients – and a good chance they’ll go back to the top and actually read all the content on your page.  (Or at least more of it!)

If your headlines and bolded content convey a choppy or incoherent message – you’ve got some work to do.  Clean it up so that someone can get an accurate and powerful overview of your message just by reading the parts of your content that stand out visually.

5. Emphasize the call to action

Just as you want to be sure that your headlines and bold text create a coherent story for the skimming reader, so you also want to be sure that eveyone – even someone skimming – can find your call to action.

I could write an entire article – or maybe even a series of articles! – on effective calls to action.  For now, just make sure that each and every page on your site has an appropriate call to action – and make sure that it stands out on the page so that someone who’s just skimming can easily see it and respond.

Easy changes – with big results

These are all easy, quick fixes that can bring significant improvements to your website’s impact.

Your readers won’t know why they find your site so welcoming and interesting – but they will.  And that means your website will engage more easily with more of the right people.

“What we see when we look at a Web page depends on what we have in mind, but it’s usually just a fraction of what’s on the page… we tend to focus on words or phrases that seem to match (a) the task at hand or (b) our current or ongoign personal interests.”  Steve Krug, American usability consultant, teacher, and author of Don’t Make Me Think: a common sense approach to web usability and Rocket Surgery Made Easy:  the do-it-yourself guide to finding and fixing usability problems.

So – who decides the value of your work?

Hint:  not you.

That can be a little hard to take.  You put so much effort into creating the best possible services and products for your clients.  You know the value you give, and you know how much attention you pay to providing the most value possible.

And now I’m saying that you don’t get to decide what that value actually is?

Nope.

Your clients get to decide.  Because all that’s relevant – despite your heartfelt and truly meaningful thought and effort – is the value your clients perceive in their experience of you.

At one point in my corporate career, I received a performance review that included the comment “perception is reality.”  Given that the perception my manager was referring to was not favorable, I was not happy, and I resisted that statement rather vehemently.

But over time I’ve come to realize that yes, perception is reality.  What’s cool about this is that once you recognize that perception is reality, you can make it work for you.

Here are a few examples of how “perception is reality” can be a positive thing for you and your business.

Gain confidence!

When you listen to your clients describe what they value about your work, you’ll hear amazing things. 

The little things you do just because – those things that are so much a part of who you are and how you approach your work that you just do them naturally – you’ll probably discover that they’re noticed and appreciated far more often than you might have thought.

In really listening to what your clients say, and really reading the emails they send you, you’ll discover expressions of appreciation that are deeper reflections of who you are than you would expect – or could imagine.

To be able to hear that appreciation, though, you must first set aside your expectations and beliefs about what’s valuable about your work.  Only then can you be willing to be surprised.

It’s worth it, because the depth of confidence that comes from understanding what your clients truly value about you and your work is amazing.

Sell more of what your clients want

As business owners – whether we provide services, products, or some mixture of the two – we like to think we know what our clients need.

And in some ways, of course, we do. 

But we have an insider’s view of the situation. 

And what our clients need may or may not be what they want.  If you’ve been in business for any length of time, it’s almost a dead certainty that at some point you’ve offered something … something that provided tremendous value … something you KNEW your clients badly needed … and it fell flat on its face.  They didn’t recognize the value and they didn’t perceive the need.

Ouch.

My personal experience along those lines led me to understand the crucial importance of selling what my clients want, and including what they need as part of what I provide.

Fine-tune your marketing

When you really hear the words and phrases your clients use when they describe the value they’ve received from you, you have real gems to use in your marketing. 

Whether on your website, in your articles, or in how you talk with people, when you incorporate the language your clients use you’ll create immediate, resonant connection with the people who will be your best customers.

When you use only your own language, you’ll tend to be confusing at least some of the time.  Again, this is something I know on a very personal level.  I teach this stuff, yet I still find myself falling in love with my own language every now and then … and getting blank looks and little response to my emails. 

On the other hand, when I use the language I hear from my clients – from you – what I say makes more sense to you, it’s more relevant and useful to you, and I receive a much more enthusiastic response to what I offer.  Needless to say, I see this in my clients’ experiences as well!

Perception is reality

So ultimately the fact that you don’t get to decide what’s valuable for your clients is good for you and for your business.

When you pay attention to what your clients actually value instead of what you think they should value, you discover powerful things about yourself and your work.

And you can use those discoveries to grow your business – and to grow yourself.

“We are shaped by each other. We adjust not to the reality of a world, but to the reality of other thinkers.”  Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-), American author and child-development theorist

All marketing is one-on-one:  one you and one client.

You standing in front of an audience of thousands.

Your website representing you to the teeming masses of internet users.

Or you talking face-to-face with one person.

It doesn’t matter.  It’s always one-on-one:  one you talking with one other person.

Each person in that audience of thousands, each internet user in that teeming mass, and that individual you’re face-to-face with is one person.  One person having his or her unique experience of you and your work.

The more you recognize this, the more successful you’ll be.  Because when you recognize that you’re talking to just one person at a time, not hundreds or thousands all at once, you have the perspective you need to create an intimacy between you and that one person – an intimacy that your potential client will feel and respond to.

If this one person is right for your work, he or she will respond by coming closer in some way – perhaps by signing up for your newsletter, coming up to talk with you after your speech, purchasing a product, or calling you to book a consultation.

If this one person is not a good fit for your work, he or she will respond by moving away – leaving your website, walking out of your presentation without a backward glance.

In both cases, that’s exactly what you want to happen.  You want your message to screen out those people who aren’t right for you, and to screen in your best clients.

It’s easy to overlook this one-to-one reality.  When you’re standing in front of that audience of thousands, there’s a sea of faces out there.  You don’t know when someone is reading your website.  If you’re leading a teleconference session, you don’t even have faces to look at – you just have to take it on faith that there are people on the line.

Of course you know you’re talking with just one person when you’re face-to-face.

What if you took that one-to-one knowledge – that one-to-one feeling – into all of your communication? 

Your website’s home page

Before you read any further – go read your home page.  (How long has it been since you read your own website?)

Does your home page feel conversational and personal, or is it purely informational and impersonal?

Your home page’s language can address multiple options and even multiple audiences and still present your message in a way that feels like a direct, personal message to the people who need to hear what you have to say.

Your sales pages

I once heard someone describe his sales-page-writing process as “writing love letters to clients.”  I think that’s beautiful, and it’s a great expression of what I’m suggesting.

What if instead of writing a sales page – with all the heaviness and anxiety that implies – you wrote love letters to your potential buyers?  How would that change your feelings about writing sales pages?  And how would it change your message?

Your presentations

When you present your work in video, on podcasts, in teleclasses, or through in-person speeches and presentations, do you find yourself talking to an amorphous “audience out there”? 

How would your energy, the tone of your voice, and your excitement and passion for your subject change if you spoke as if you were addressing just one person?

Who is it?

Who is the one person you’re talking to? 

Knowing that one person means knowing how to write your side of the conversation on your home page.

Knowing that one person means knowing exactly what words and tone will feel like a love letter inviting that one person to understand more about the value of your relationship with him or her.

Knowing that one person means knowing how he or she wants to learn from you in your presentations.

When you don’t speak to just one person, you dilute your message.  It’s almost impossible to write a clear, compelling message when you’re writing to an undifferentiated crowd.

Each and every person in that crowd is experiencing you as an individual – as one person.  Isn’t it time you gave each of them the same respect and consideration?

“You can’t love a crowd the same way you can love a person.  And a crowd can’t love you the way a single person can love you.  Intimacy doesn’t scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon.”  Hugh Macleod, American cartoonist and author, from his ChangeThis manifesto “How to be Creative.”

The person who calls sales pages love letters? It’s the fabulous Fabeku Fatunmise, at http://www.fabeku.com. Funny, brilliant, and definitely out of the ordinary!

Words.

From the moment our ears and brain develop in the womb, we’re surrounded by words.

Within months of birth, we start responding to the words we hear.  We learn to speak around the time of our first birthday.  And we might be reading by age three.

Words fill our thoughts, our dreams, our encounters with people, and our encounters with ourselves.  Even when someone is born deaf, words quickly become a part of every moment through sign language, reading, and thought.

Familiarity breeds contempt.  And so we don’t take words seriously.

As business owners, words are how we connect with our customers.  Written or spoken, on a website, in a video, a podcast, or in person, words carry the message between us and the people we hope will buy from us – the people we hope to help.

Your word choices create emotional responses in your audience – emotional responses that can be subtle and are often subconscious.  The words you use in your messages make people feel something, even though they may not be aware of why they’re feeling that way. 

How they feel drives the decisions they make – including decisions about whether or not to purchase what you offer.

People think good writing is what makes a good message.

They’re wrong.

Good writing all by itself is not important.

Good writing can even get in the way of your message. 

It’s the power of words to connect that’s important, not the quality of the writing on its own.  Which is why “bad” writing can sometimes create a deeper, more powerful connection than apparently “good” writing.

You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve read websites that were written well, but felt flat, bland, and uninteresting.

And you’ve read websites that would make your high school English teacher cringe … yet the message was warm, understanding, and inviting.

The feeling is what matters, not the quality of the writing.

The feeling is what draws your reader in and makes the person you’re talking to lean closer, eager to hear more.

So forget the writing – go for the feeling.

How?

That’s a ginormous question.  There’s no quick answer.  However, here are four important considerations.

Understanding and empathy

Do you actually understand – at the felt level, not just intellectually – the situation your customers are facing?

Do you know, without stopping to think about it, why they need your help?

Do you feel the struggle they experience, and the effect that struggle has on their lives?

No amount of good writing can help you give your audience the feeling of being understood … unless you truly do understand.

And if you don’t understand, then your “good writing” can leave them feeling as if you’re insincere, slick, and sales-y.

Knowing more than you tell

In college, I was fortunate to study with author Mary Lee Settle.  She was an amazing woman and a powerful teacher.

The most important thing she taught me was the necessity of knowing more than you explicitly describe.  That wealth of knowledge creates depth and resonance in your writing; it leaves readers feeling as if there’s a foundation there that they can trust.

Who are your customers, and why do they matter to you?  How well do you know them?  Not just the problem they face, but what that problem does to their lives, and how solving it would transform their experience? 

Are you showing up?

Showing up is taking ownership of what you offer and describing its value with confidence and certainty.

That’s not boasting or arrogance.  It’s standing in the power of what you do so that you can be in full service to your customers. 

When you hold back, you do yourself and your clients a terrible disservice, because you’re not showing up in the fullness of what you offer.  You’re not making them deeply aware of your ability to help them find answers to the problems that are keeping them awake at night, and that are destroying some aspect of their lives and their happiness.

Words and writing are tools

That’s all – just tools.  You can learn to use them better.  You can learn to understand your customers better, so that you know what words they’ll respond to – the words that will help them feel understood, safe, and confident that you can help them.

So forget the effort to write well.  Focus on understanding well, and let the words come naturally from your understanding.

“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.”  Cato the Elder (234 BCE – 149 BCE), Roman statesman

“Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one.”  Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr. (1900-1965), American politician, diplomat, and two-time Presidential candidate; from a speech to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, July 21 1952

“For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.”  Ingrid Bengis (1944-), American author and essayist.

Everything you do communicates your core message about who you are, what you offer, and why and how you offer it.

That means that everything you do is marketing. 

You’ve probably heard that many times.  It probably makes sense intellectually.  But do you really get it at the deepest level?

As the old saying goes, someone has to know, like, and trust you before they’ll be ready to buy from you.  It’s the job of your marketing message to create the conditions for that to happen.

And since everything you do is marketing, everything you do is about being worthy of your audience’s trust.

In the spirit of my last article, I’m presenting a personal story to illustrate this point.

(You can read “What Self-Awareness Can Teach You About Marketing” at http://svahaconcepts.com/articles/the-internal-message/what-self-awareness-can-teach-you-about-marketing)

Trust erodes gradually

I’m searching for a new doctor because I no longer trust my previous doctor.

In small ways over time, I got the message that she doesn’t really care about me.  From her being late for my appointment because she was out getting a pedicure while I waited, to the speed with which she suggested expensive and invasive procedures, to some odd comments about her relationship with health-insurance companies … it added up.

No single event was significant on its own, but they accumulated to create a strong feeling of mistrust.

It’s far easier to keep a current client than to get a new client.  Your current client already knows, likes, and trusts you.

Blow the trust part, though, and they may decide they don’t like you much any more.

And then you’ll never hear from them again.

Trust is subtle

I asked Google and my friends for suggestions, and I visited a lot of doctors’ websites.  After much hunting, I reduced my choices to three.  Two I found through Google, and one from a friend’s recommendation.

One of those websites is beautiful, slick, and highly professional.

One of them is clean, simple, and bland.

One is jumbled, wildly over-informative, and badly outdated in appearance.

You might think I’d go for the first. 

But there’s something about the site that makes me uncomfortable.  It’s too slick.  It presents the doctor’s work in a way more suited to a corporate consultant than what I want in a doctor. 

The final blow to any potential for trust in this doctor, though, came when I noticed that the image on the home page bears an iStockPhoto watermark.  This says to me that they’re using the image without paying for it.

Trust is individual

So that leaves me with a choice of clean, simple, and bland versus over-informative, outdated, and kind of wacky.

The clean-but-bland site belongs to a doctor who was highly recommended by a friend.

The wacky site leaves me feeling overwhelmed with all the information and a bit nervous because of comments about how late this doctor tends to be for appointments.

Logically you’d think I’d go with the doctor who was recommended by someone I know.

But purchasing decisions aren’t made logically.  Purchasing decisions are made emotionally, based on whether we feel as if we know, like, and trust the person from whom we’re buying.

The wacky site’s tremendous amount of information is interesting to me.  I’m a knowledge junkie.  I love learning new things, even if the presentation is jumbled.  Plus, the site explains why she’s late:  because she spends time with her patients. 

The wacky site gives me a sense of the doctor’s personality and style.  I begin to feel that I know her.  There’s even something appealing about this site’s jumbled presentation.  It’s enthusiastic and warm.  I can’t help liking the person it describes to me, even though I’m frustrated by the site’s discombobulated appearance.

Finally, the information presented on the wacky site aligns with what I already know about the medical issues the doctor describes, and I like her approach to them – so I feel that I can trust her.

The bland site gives me no clues about personality, approach, or style.  All I have are my friend’s impressions, which are based on what she needs and values.

How does this apply to you and your business?

As you can see from this example – and from examples I’m sure you can find in your own experience – your message, including how it’s presented, has a tremendous impact on whether your audience trusts you.  And it may not have the impact you expect it to have!

Your best approach is wholly dependent on your audience. 

Some audiences want glossy, and some want casual.  Some want lots of information, while some want just enough.  And it’s amazing how many apparent problems or flaws can be overcome when the message being conveyed is authentic and filled with personality.

You will always create a better connection with your audience when you start by understanding what they need from you.

Don’t assume you know, because you could be disastrously wrong.

“In a networked world, trust is the most important currency.”  Eric Schmidt (1955-), American engineer, executive chairman of Google, former member of the board of directors of Apple, and past CEO of Google.

There are many ways to learn about marketing.

Countless marketing gurus have endless quantities of material available, paid and otherwise.  You can download e-books, buy physical books, listen to recordings, watch video, read blogs … it goes on and on and on. 

And it quickly becomes overwhelming.  How do you sort out which approach – out of all the myriad you’re exposed to – will work for you?  How do you know which guru – out of all the hundreds clamoring for your attention – is the one you want to trust?  How can you tell which task – out of the many queued up on your To-Do list – is the one that will bring you the best return for the precious time you’ll invest?

The answer is simple:  listen to yourself.  Trust your own self-awareness to help you sort through it all.

And trust your self-awareness to teach you as much as – maybe more than – all those gurus put together.

Because while they can teach you the nuts and bolts, the “how-to” aspects of marketing, only you can teach you what will actually work for you and your audience. 

Only you can discern what approach is in alignment with who you are, what your work represents to your clients, and how you want to show up.

Let’s look at what I mean by this.

Notice your reactions

You react to whatever you experience. 

You react to how those marketing gurus present their material; you react to the material itself; you react to your imagined experience of using the material to promote your business; and – if you do use the material – you react to your actual experience of using it.

When you study something and then put what you’ve learned into practice, it’s natural to look outside yourself to see the results.  So when you do a marketing activity, you look outside to see what happens.  Are more people signing up for your newsletter?  Are more people retweeting your tweets?  Is there a steady flow of visitors to your website – and are they buying?

Of course you want to track your results.  But you also want to track your experience throughout the process.

How does learning from each person feel to you?  Can you discern your internal reactions – pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral – to the ways different teachers present their material and to the approaches they recommend you employ?  When you use what you’ve learned, even as it may feel like a stretch to you, is it a good stretch, or is it uncomfortable because it’s out of alignment with who you are?

Trust your reactions!

You can respect someone’s expertise and opinion and still be aware that what she’s teaching or how she’s teaching it doesn’t work for you or your audience.

There are so many options available.  Don’t limit yourself to one that doesn’t feel in alignment for you.  Just because someone’s an “expert” doesn’t mean he’s right and you’re wrong.

Notice your responses

Every time you pick up a loaf of bread or a head of lettuce at the store or download an e-book or a recorded teleclass off someone’s website, you’re making a purchasing choice – and yes, it’s a purchasing choice even if it’s not something you had to pay for. 

Whether you like it or not, those purchasing choices are based at least in part on marketing. 

More specifically, they’re based on your responses to how different companies and individuals present themselves through their marketing.

Sometimes you feel repelled by marketing, and sometimes you feel intrigued.  Sometimes you can’t escape fast enough from someone’s annoying website, and sometimes you’re drawn in to browse and read and explore.

It’s easy to believe that the repellant marketing is repellant to everyone, and the intriguing marketing is intriguing to everyone, but of course that’s not true.  People do what works for their audiences, so although it may not work for you, it’s working for someone.

When you pay attention to your internal responses to other people’s marketing, you’ll learn just as much about how to tune your own marketing as you’ll learn from reading all those e-books and attending all those marketing classes.

Which email headlines do you find intriguing, and which ones cause you to hit “delete” without reading the message?  What levels of self-disclosure invite your trust, and what levels turn you off with not enough information – or way too much?  Which techniques around scarcity and urgency make you reach for your wallet, and which make you feel manipulated or angry?

Study after study has proven that we make purchasing decisions emotionally first, and then justify them logically.  Therefore, noticing these responses in yourself requires paying attention to more than just your thoughts about your experience.  It takes being aware of your body – because often a “yes” response will show up in your heart first, and a “no” response may show up in your gut before it reaches your mind. And it takes being open to your emotional experience, even if it doesn’t feel good or when you might not agree with it intellectually.

Constant effective learning

As you’ve probably noticed, refining your message is an ongoing process.  Learning about marketing, learning about your customers, and learning about your business never stops. 

Yet as I’m sure you’ve also noticed, you have only so much time and energy to invest in your business.  So of course you want to invest that time and energy where it will do the most good!

Becoming self-aware of your reactions and responses to marketing, especially how you’re affected by it in your own purchasing decisions, is one of the most effective and efficient ways to use your time.

After all, you’re having those reactions and responses all the time anyway!  The amount of extra effort to pay attention to what’s going on inside you is minimal – and the potential payback in more effective marketing, not to mention greater self-confidence as you develop your trust in yourself, is tremendous.

“The mind’s first step to self-awareness must be through the body.”  George Sheehan (1918-1993), American athlete, cardiologist, and author