The Most Powerful Word In The Marketer's Toolbox

In advertising we call this "reason why", and it's the most important part of any consumer communication.

It's what creates believability.

And it works because most advertising doesn't use it.

Consider the power of the following phrases:

Softdrink: "Slice tastes better because it contains 10% real fruit juice." (This claim created a $2 billion piece of business in an industry where virtually every new soft drink fails - because they don't use the magic word "because"!)

Airline: "You arrive fresh and well rested because we've put 6" more legroom between every row." (Hint, hint, airlines!)

Professional Speaker: "Your audience will retain of our information more because we'll give each one of them reminder emails for 6 weeks after our presentation."

Consultant: "You get expert advice because I will personally interview your team and prepare the plan, rather than utilizing brand new college graduates to do the work like most consulting companies do."

Versus:

Levi's: "A style for every story." What on earth does that mean?

United Airlines: "We love to fly and it shows." Who cares?

Pepsi: "It's the cola." Now that's a compelling way to make me want to drink your stuff. Whatever happened to the Pepsi taste test?

It's important to recognize here that the word "because" isn't the source of the magic. It's the fact that you're telling the reader why they should believe your claim that is. Other words can be used to convey the same thing.

But "because" does it better than almost any other word I've ever tried!

It's truly a tragedy that so many brands and companies either fail or don't reach their full potential because they don't get around to finding or communicating the "because" in their business. The result is gutless, insipid, useless marketing that's justified with the terms "image advertising" or the classic company-killing cop out term "branding."

If you want to build your brand, give your customers a great product, with a great benefit, and a thoroughly believable reason why I should believe that it's possible.

That builds brands, and creates millionaires!

What's the "because" in your business?

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Now that you're convinced of the power of reason-why advertising (right?), let's take this discussion to a higher level.

The best way to capitalize on reason-why marketing is to find way to instantly, visually show the reason why your "reason why" delivers on your marketing claim.

One of the most powerful ways to do this is with a demo.

The best demos are short, visual, and clearly show how your product or service resolves a core consumer need.

And they're even better when they show the competitor's shortcoming at the same time.

I remember the 3 second demo that created the Poise brand of incontinence products (I'm proud to say I was the brand manager who conceived of and introduced that brand).

We put our product next to the competitor's product and poured blue liquid on each. The blue liquid bounced right off the competitor's product and flowed onto the table (a clear demonstration of how the competitor's product frequently leaks.) Our product instantly soaked up the liquid.

At the same time the consumer heard "New Poise pads help prevent leakage because they instantly absorb liquid..."

Now that created a stir.

People in the target market loved the ad.

So they tried it. It performed up to their expectations, and that 3 second demo (plus our other marketing) almost instantly turned Poise into a $100+ million dollar brand.

Demos can be filmed and shown in advertising, on websites and on a DVD that you mail to potential customers.

The best demos can also be reproduced on your potential buyer's desk. That creates a powerful, memorable sales call that tends to turn into an order.

The key is to create a demo that clearly shows how your product solves a major unmet consumer need. Demos that deal with unimportant issues lack breakthrough power and are of lesser value.

Do you have a demo that you could use to build your business?

Are you interested in more information to help in branding your business? You may want to check out our audio CD, "Brand Your Business and Make Your Profits Explode."

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