Massive Action Marketing           

Nothing happens until something moves ~ Albert Einstein

 

This was a critique I did as an exercise, hence the company details being changed:





Our service has a four pronged philosophy:

Personal: Our business motive is service before profit. Our aim is to provide the best, most appropriate and informative [products] - and spread awareness that solutions do exist in the process. We treat our customers as friends, which is why we go to so much effort to find exactly what you are looking for. We'll source any [needed product], including ones not currently covered in our catalogue - and if we cannot supply [it] personally, we'll tell you who can! We also listen. Your suggestions mean a lot to us as we build and shape [our business].

Professional:  Our skilled and experienced staff will answer your calls and emails the same day where possible and certainly within two working days. Orders and queries are processed accurately and efficiently. We operate a confidentiality policy and will not pass your details to any other organisations.

Practical / adj: "of or concerned with practice or use rather than theory; suited to use or action; designed mainly to fulfil a function (practical shoes); feasible, realistic; concerned with what is actually possible (practical politics; practical solutions)." Concise Oxford Dictionary

Principled: We are committed to sustainable principles and best achievable sustainable practices in line with (and beyond!) Agenda 21 protocols.


  The Changes:


The first thing I did was to take out the headings Personal/Professional/Practical/ Principled.

I did this for a couple of reasons:

  1. The website visitor doesn’t care/need to know what categories you put them in. 
  2. There were too many good ideas lumped in together and so a lot of good ones were lost in the crowd. 
  3. The ‘practical’ heading didn’t really make too much sense. 
  4. Also the reference to ‘Agenda 21 protocols’ mightn’t make sense to everybody, even to people in the target market. 

 

So the revised message reads as follows (superscripted notes are explained below):


Here’s our1 promise to you. 2
 

  • We’ll put service before profit, because we know that ethical profit only comes from offering the best service. 3  

  • We’ll provide the best and most informative [products] available so that you can find the solutions you need. 

  • We put a lot of time and effort into sourcing the best [products] for you. For every x [products] we include, we reject y as not being good enough. 4  

  • We commit to help you find what you need. We'll source any [product], including ones not currently covered in our catalogue - and if we cannot supply [the product] personally, we'll tell you who can! 5  

  • We'll listen to you: to your needs, desires and suggestions as to how we can serve you better. A lot of companies make this claim - we really do it. Try it out and see for yourself. 6  

  • We'll answer your calls and emails the same day where possible, and certainly within two working days. 7 

  • We'll process your orders and queries accurately and efficiently, and on the very rare occasions where we get it wrong, we’ll make it right by [whatever you do to make it right] 8  

  • We'll guarantee the absolute confidentiality of your information. 

 
Notes: 
  1. It’s a big decision whether you say ‘my’ or ‘our’. There’s no shame in being a one-man/woman band if you are, and people often like that, especially if you play up the personal service aspect, so you could say ‘I’. 
  2. The whole statement is much more personal, intimate and above all conversational when you say, “My promise to you”, than “Our service has a four pronged philosophy”. My example promotes connection and trust. It’s person-to-person. 
  3. The ‘service before profit’ motif is very good; but you need to acknowledge that you do make profit. It sounds very strange and almost untrustworthy otherwise, as in too-good-to-be-true. 
  4. I don’t know if this is true. But I presume it is, and if so, you’re losing out on a LOT of credibility and added value if you don’t say it. 
  5. I really don’t recommend the ‘treat you as a friend’ statement. Website visitors aren’t looking for more friends, they’re looking for information in the first instance, and good service once they decide to buy. You can and should offer and promise the good service, and let them decide they feel like they’re being treated like friends. (In fact, you should have a testimonial page too, that’s another discussion.) 
  6. I added the statement, ‘A lot of companies make this claim’, because a lot do, and that’s what the reader will be thinking, probably with some scepticism. So putting that in acknowledges their scepticism and deals with it, as much as it can be dealt with until you get the chance to prove it. 
  7. That commitment to getting back to them promptly is important, and deserves its own line. 
  8. You need to admit you get it wrong sometimes. Again, people won’t believe it never happens and it undermines your credibility to say that. Acknowledge that you sometimes get it wrong and give a strong statement of how you fix it.

If you'd like me to critique and improve your own website, with the ultimate aim of making it easier for website visitors to become customers, just click here.

 

Or, if you'd like a website done from scratch, click here for information on that.