Creating Marketing Hooks With Meaning!

By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

When it comes to marketing messages that resonate most with potential buyers, showing is more effective than telling. What do I mean by that?

Consider the steady stream of marketing messages you receive containing hooks that mean nothing to you. Aren’t they intended to grab our attention? When they hit our in-box or appear during our scrolling, we don’t even notice them.

Things like….

We’re the industry gold standard!

Technology reimagined!

Worldclass!

And sadly, far too many of us are creating hooks like these.  

One of my all-time favorite hooks is “Finger Lickin’ Good”, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan that has stood the test of time and here’s why it works.

One, it’s centered on the customer, not KFC. They’re not teasing us with the secret recipe, explaining the quality of the ingredients, or how the chicken is raised and harvested humanely. It captures the customer’s experience in three words.

Two, it shows, rather than tells. KFC could easily have said the chicken is tender, the coating is delicious, and it is served hot. But instead, they deliver a mental image and let the customer draw their own conclusions, despite being a violation of good table manners.

When you’re in the next creative session, think of the KFC model.

Here are some examples.  

Outsourced manufacturing that helps you sleep at night!

A CRM that your salespeople will actually use!

Regulatory compliance so good that the FDA asks us for advice!

Well, maybe this last one goes a bit far and would bring unwanted attention from the FDA, but you get the idea.

Rather than developing hooks about yourself with little meaning for your target audience, try capturing the impact your products and services have on your buyers.

Have fun creating and I’d love to see what you come up with!