Leads Are Humans, So Talk Human If You Want Real Conversion
There is one big problem with many marketers and executives I meet. When thinking about content for their websites, they forget that visitors, leads and customers are all human beings. And with that sudden amnesia comes the obsessive fear that readers may get the wrong, even fatal impression about the company if they come across an honest, humble text.
But in fact, an honest, humble text is exactly what they are looking for, as revealed by Konstantsin Tsybulko‘s latest research on B2B sales writing called The PERC Formula of Human Sales Communication. Konstantsin has spent a year and a half interviewing ‘prospects’ and ‘leads’ to find out how they felt being targets of sales writers. What he found was that readers mostly wanted “honesty, integrity and authenticity.” The qualities, he wrote (and the figures showed), that are essential to building any relationship.
I couldn’t agree more. One day, I was interviewing the CEO of a software development company for a new “About Us” page, digging up some details in the company’s history. Here’s how it went:
‘We started as a bunch of geeks who knew virtually nothing about project management.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we can put it exactly this way to make the text a bit more human.’
‘No, no, no,’ she started, ‘you can’t put it like this! What if visitors get us wrong?! What if they think we are incompetent?!’
Now look at the world’s most known entrepreneurs. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Henry Ford’s first two car companies failed and left him broke. Thomas Edison tried 9,000 times before he invented the first bulb. Walt Disney was fired by an editor because “he lacked imagination and had no original ideas”.
No one enters this world as a pro.
Everyone was once an audacious newbie. Every brand was once small. All your leads and customers, however seriously you take them and however seriously you think they take you, were once know-nothing beginners.
Immaturity and failure are essential to human experience. And now here you are, the most perfect company in the world, out of nowhere, kicking off with 4,000 employees on board and only the biggest brands among the customers. Not even a single fuckup, huh? Looks great! But we all know it never happens in real life, and people will spot this bluff in a jiffy.
It takes courage to reverse your ego and admit that you were once tiny and incompetent. But this is exactly what will make your company stand out and look stronger among others.
PS. You can find more of my tips on describing a company here.
Mikita Cherkasau is copywriter and CEO at Your Extra Marketer, a small content marketing agency with a single focus on IT.
