The magic forumla

Competing with Accountants North London , I know Sackmans needs to offer a lot more value than our competitors.

As well as high levels of service, and proactive tax planning, this means being able to help businesses grow sales, improve profits and boost cashflow with practical business advice.

A key part of this is marketing and I have written before about how small businesses can’t use brand based promotion because they don’t have enough money to make it work. You need millions to even get started. So, instead I advise clients to use Direct Response Marketing.

A key element of Direct Response Marketing is good copy writing and there are many great books on this subject but I’d thought I’d share some thoughts.

The well established formula in marketing is AIDA which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. According to Wikipedia AIDA was first used in an article in 1921 but similar formulas were used in the 1800s.

This type of approach has worked for many years but I am not convinced this is the best approach for now.

For a start, I’m not sure starting with “Attention” is the right approach because it encourages you to think of a cleaver headline rather than a valuable one. I suggest starting with “Thought Provoking”.

An attention grabbing headline for Sackmans could be “Introducing A Unique Accountancy Approach For Start-Up (And Young) Businesses”. In the advert, Webpage or letter I could then go on to explain in detail what I do and how it will help start-up businesses.

A Thought Provoking headline could be  “Do you know the 7 traps that kill 98% of start-up in the first five years?”

Imagine you are a start-up business and got two mail shots with these headline. Which do you think people will be more like to carry on reading? Something that bangs on about my firm’s service or something which may educate you?

I recommend starting with “Thought Provoking” because it encourages you to write copy that is interesting.

I could write a free report called “The 7 start-up traps” and promote this rather than promoting Sackmans. When someone responds and reads the report I will be seen as a trusted advisor.

I can then engage with them and start to build a relationship based on trust which hopefully will develop into a commercial relationship.

So, my formula is TEEA which stands for Thought Provoking, Educational, Engaging and Action.