Why read this article? Because it’ll help you reach your best clients.

 

January, 2022

How many emails do you get each day? How many of them do you take time to read? Think about how many posts come into your LinkedIn stream each day. How many of them do you click on to read further?

If you’re like me, you can delete 25 emails in less than 20 seconds.

Given that, how do you keep the blogs and emails and newsletters you write from getting a quick delete by your desired readers?

Find the Big Idea. 

What’s a Big Idea?

It’s the Idea that grabs the attention of your readers. It holds your marketing piece together. It takes a fresh perspective to get to the deepest desires of your particular audience.

Consider how Aleck worked out his Big Idea. His Big Idea pertained to both his product AND his marketing.

Aleck was born in Scotland in the mid-1800s. He and his parents moved to Canada when he was in college because his younger brothers had both just died from tuberculosis. His mother thought moving would save what remained of their small family.

Father and Grandfather were specialists in elocution. After he and his family moved from Scotland to North America, his mother insisted he learn the American English accent perfectly. (I’m not sure what the “American” accent was in the 1800s.

Aleck soon moved to the United States. He continued in the line of work his father and grandfather had been in. They worked with deaf students to help them improve their speech.

Aleck taught at schools for the deaf in Massachusetts and Connecticut. While in Boston, he met an attorney, Gardiner Greene Hubbard and they became friends.

Four years later, Aleck had fallen in love with Hubbard’s daughter and they married.

Attorney Hubbard, now his father-in-law,  became an important financial supporter of Aleck’s side-work. There was a movement in the telegraph business to find a way to send more than one telegraph at a time. Aleck joined in the research. Could they send as many as 4?

Along the way, his imagination took him a step beyond the traditional telegraph. If dots and dashes could be sent as electrical impulses through wire, why couldn’t sound also be sent that way?

Then, somewhat by accident, as Aleck worked with his assistant who was in another room, a different sound did make it through the wires. Soon after, with some tweaks in the wiring, Aleck called to his assistant, again in a different room, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

Mr. Watson heard him through the new, but still elementary, wiring. He understood what Aleck had said and came to Aleck’s room. Alexander Graham Bell had invented the first primitive telephone.

Mr. Bell’s stated goal was to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages at the same time. Underneath that, though, he wanted to create a system called “visible speech.” Why his interest in “visible speech”?

Because the two women who were dearest to him–his mother and wife–were both deaf.

Alexander Graham Bell’s Big Idea had 3 key elements that made it marketable. Look creatively and honestly at the needs of your prospective clients. You can use those key elements to grab their attention.

The 3 key elements that make your Big Idea click-worthy

Whether you’re writing an email or a newsletter or creating a sales video, you want it to stand out. What do you say that will get your  preferred clients to open it?

Include these 3 elements:

1. You want to have a NEW perspective on a current issue. Maybe you want to make a connection between the pandemic and mental health. There are lots of articles about that already. A flood of them. What new piece of information can you give your readers? What fresh viewpoint will get their interest and contribute something of value to their thinking?

The Idea must bring something new to the reader they didn’t know before. Therefore, it also needs to be . . .

2. TIMELY. What is your intended audience thinking about today? Last summer’s news doesn’t matter to most readers anymore. What are the social, technological, political, financial, and spiritual issues people are paying attention to right now?

Most people are processing current personal and social concerns.

• How we educated our children pre-pandemic doesn’t matter as much to parents and teachers as how we educate them today.
• How people coped with their jobs in 2018 isn’t how they cope in 2022.
• The deeper personal struggles people have today may be driven by (or revealed to them) because of the pandemic, economic struggles, and their work environment being more difficult.

Use your words to reach out to them how they are most in need of hearing from you.

3. TOUCH THE DEEPEST LONGINGS of your intended audience. Make an Impact. What do they want? What need do they have that you can help them with? Let your Big Idea make clear (or at least imply) the benefit you’re making available to them.

This is why it’s important to know who you’re writing to. An educated Black Millennial woman living in Philadelphia, working in the business world, will probably have a different lifestyle and interests than an educated white Millennial woman teaching school in Omaha, NE.

Consider a 50-year white man who has outgrown what the public church has to offer. Yet, he wants to stay within the Christian tradition for his spirituality. What he’s looking for is different from his 52-year old brother who has left the church feeling angry and betrayed.

Touch the core yearnings of your ideal clients. Who are you reaching out to? Be specific and clear about that in your mind and your marketing. What are their deepest desires? Write to that unmet need.

Share your unique, timely, meaningful Big Idea. We’re all inundated with words upon words every day. Get your prospective clients’ attention so they can discover how you’re able to help them improve their lives.

Carmala Aderman writes content and marketing copy for people in the Professional Training and Coaching industry and those who are Spiritual Teachers. If you’re looking for a freelance writer who can help you reach more people with your expertise, contact me at carmala@carmalaaderman.com or on LinkedIn.