Is There a Friendly Voice in the House?

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by Rick Beneteau

Another Monday morning boot-up and in floods a weekend's worth of hype and hysteria. A quick survey of email Subjects and opening lines and not one interests me enough to lay down my first cup of hot Java on my desk. Delete, delete, and delete.

We're all getting very tired of the spam and scam and those of us on the leading edge of Internet Marketing are pioneering innovative ways to bring our wares to the attention of the ever-growing population of netizens. I want to address what I feel is an issue just as fundamental as these new methods of online marketing, and that is, once we have "landed a prospect" in front of our email letter, classified ad or website - what exactly is it are we projecting in our pitch.

I can tell you from a quick glance of the latest crop of spam, a few applied some of the "laws" as taught by the master marketers - addressing the benefits/"what's in it for me?" (get rich quick will never die I'm afraid) and a couple had quasi-clever Subjects/lead-ins, but not a single letter contained one iota of something just as important. There wasn't a Friendly Voice in the House!

In my first published article "The Unwritten Law of You" I wrote about the importance of making people feel "right at home" in your business website. Here, I am simply stretching that concept a bit further into rolling out the welcome mat in every piece of marketing material you put out. Very few ads, spam letters, autoresponses or Web sites have that magical power to command my attention. That could admittedly be my disenchantment with the barrage of promotional trash of late, but all the more reason to stick out from the crowd with some down-home "humanness".

As human beings, we all not only need, but also crave personal attention and friendship. I cannot stress enough that there is always a Living Breathing Person at the receiving end of your Internet calling cards. And people are most likely to do business with a warm body than a cold fish.

So, do you think it would make a difference if you projected YOUR friendliness in YOUR copy? You bet it would! But what if you're not a Robin Hood and more like Atilla the Hun? What if you couldn't project a nice-guy (girl) image if your life depended on it? Friendliness can't be forced, so hire somebody to do the job for you. It must feel natural and genuine (you better have a similar body at the customer service end as well) .

For the majority of us who are the "person next door" types, simply write your copy as if you are speaking to your mother or best friend. Warning though - sweet is good, but syrup is not on the menu. If it feels like you are forcing your friendliness, then you probably are. Revisit the process until it comes naturally to you. As with all crafts, this will come more easily with practice.

A closing thought. As Internet Marketing pioneers, we become obsessed with such things as "hits" and "sales to hits" ratios. But we must remember that we are "hitting" on human beings that are no different than we are and it is just our nature to gravitate to the good trust the worthy. Projecting friendliness is the first step in the process.

The quicker I can make a person feel at home with me, the sooner I will close the sale and make a new friend.

And after all, isn't that the name of the game?