How much traction does your marketing content get? Is it attracting people to your website, shop, or wherever you need them? If not, perhaps your content isn’t sending the right message. Or it's not engaging enough to keep people on the page, let alone click through to make an enquiry.
Content that’s written in a way to attract and engage customers will keep them tuned into your socials and other channels. A big part of that engagement comes from getting your messaging right and making an emotional connection. It needs to be crystal clear what benefits they get when buying from you.
To attract more customers, the messaging needs to be spot on. Not just the words, but the tone for the audience, too. So, you may need to adapt your messaging for different customer types. And if that key message is wrong – or, worse still, missing – then you end up missing out on new customers. Because if they can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll go elsewhere.
I was put in mind of this today when looking up Eurostar trains from London to Strasbourg. My other half is a full-time wheelchair user, which can make booking holidays – even short breaks – challenging. But because I promised Russ a short Eurostar break for his 60th last December, I’m stuck with Eurostar and getting frustrated.
Eurostar’s marketing message is: Together we go further. Nike’s is: Where all athletes belong. To avoid confusion, these are their key messages, their promises. Whereas Nike’s better-known Just Do It is their advertising tagline (shorter than a slogan). A subtle but important difference!
So, your overall marketing message needs to be a promise, encapsulating your entire offering, which can take time to develop. This HubSpot article, How to Identify Your Core Marketing Message, explains more. And this will also help: Targeted Copy and Taglines… yeah, the terminology gets blurred! Slogans, taglines, key messages – even seasoned advertising and marketing agencies blur the lines.
Welcome to Storytime!
The Angst of Accessible Holiday Bookings
Let me explain what it’s like to book a holiday as a wheelchair user. This is our experience; all wheelchair users have different specific needs but there are many similarities.
First, there’s the travel. When booking a flight, we notify the airline that we’re a wheelchair user and need assistance onto the plane. We need to check in two hours earlier than able-bodied travellers. When we reach the desk (if you can actually ‘reach’ it! They’re often too high), remind them that our wheelchair needs to be stowed in the hold. And that we need the aisle chair and assistance to get to the seat. When boarding, we then pray that they don’t chuck the wheelchair around like a suitcase – it is, after all, your ’legs’, your freedom. We know many people who have had their wheelchairs damaged in transit.
Pro tip: Never agree to disembark until you know your wheelchair is by the door, not an airport one. I always double-check before Russ transfers from his seat to the aisle chair.
Travelling by air to your holiday destination as a wheelchair user isn’t easy, but improvements are happening. Albeit slowly. So, we often just drive to France. At least booking the Eurotunnel is relatively easy!
And don’t get me started on most hotel websites not having ‘Accessible’ as an option listed along with their ‘Suites’, ‘Sea View’, ‘Double’ and other room types. It would be so much faster to book directly from the website. Instead, we have to ring or email to check availability, ask if the shower is a roll-in one and whether it has a shower chair, etc. All that’s made even harder when we travel to non-English speaking countries.
The Nightmare of Train Travel in England
But rail travel? That’s a whole other story!
In the 21 years that Russ has been in a chair (and the 17 years we’ve been together), he’s never travelled by train in the UK … until last year. The UK’s rail network is bad enough for able-bodied people, but the horror stories we hear from other wheely friends who travel by rail would make your hair stand on end. For that reason, whenever we go to London, it’s quicker and easier to drive.
Last year, we drove to and stayed in the Docklands area for a long weekend. We were actually able to use the Docklands Light Railway! Then we hopped on a tube. Such excitement! No actual hopping was involved for obvious reasons. Naturally, Russ had previously checked which tube stations were accessible for us to get to the West End, and it worked. It felt like a huge achievement, doing what ‘normal’ people do.
The rail network is gradually becoming more accessible, but it’s still nowhere near good enough.
So, my biggest challenge for our Strasbourg trip is to get us from our sleepy Oxfordshire village to London St Pancras by train, ensuring that every station is accessible. If you have any experience of that, please share!
The Missing Link
The Eurostar website is, on the whole, clear and helpful. The accessibility travel planning page lists everything we need to do and what to expect before our journey. There are links to almost every station where you can get assistance. Except Strasbourg, it seems.
It took a bit of navigating to discover that Strasbourg isn’t actually a Eurostar destination. Paris is. From there, you need to book a separate train. There were pages of links and more links, and eventually, I found it. But it shouldn’t be that difficult! I wasted so much time.
So, their content seems to reflect their marketing message. The fact that I couldn’t find a key piece of information crucial to our needs doesn’t detract from my trust in them … too much. But my confidence in their service has been dented. I’m sure they’re fine, aren’t they?!
This begs the question – how clear is your content, and how easy is your website to navigate? Will your customers get frustrated and leave, or can they find what they need quickly and easily?
Does Your Marketing Miss Crucial Messages?
This is where an outsider can help. You’re so close to your business that you may miss obvious things that a prospective customer could find really helpful. As mentioned above, if they can’t find what they need they’ll go elsewhere. And you’ve lost another customer.
How I help:
Impartiality – I look at your website and other marketing from an outsider’s perspective
Ability to adopt your customers’ persona to figure out what they need – I'm a chameleon!
Methodical website review to check that all the important info is well positioned both on the page and within the navigation of your website
Deep dive search for that crucial information. If it’s missing or in the wrong place, I’ll put it right
I’ll check that the content messaging is clearly stated and understandable, with no confusing jargon
As an experienced SEO copywriter, I research the relevant keywords and phrases that help customers find your website
Want to get your marketing message right?
Then let’s set up a discovery call:
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