I've been noticing that the art of being crystal clear in communicating is becoming a lost one. When I see a commercial on television these days, I am often left with the question... what were they advertising? When I receive emails or read Facebook posts, I often have that same feeling... what were they trying to say?
It is imperative in order to be successful in anything that we communicate in the most clear and precise way possible. A friend of mine used to run a highly successful business selling independent label CDs. There was no other venue for independent labels and he really came along at the right time. His name is Derek Sivers and has since sold that company he built over more than a decade for tens of millions. He was always striving at being clear and suggested this to me in an email recently.
But there's a related thought, here: http://sivers.org/unclear
To me, the biggest thing I've learned about emailing in the last few years is to keep it as short as possible - like under 5 sentences. Sounds extreme, but I think it's more personal and gets read more. Then you can point them to a URL for more.
This same idea is translatable into your advertising and branding. Clear equals more sales and better relationships. This same man was very clever and creative in the most simple tasks such as the confirmation letter of a sale and shipping of the product. It was always entertaining to say the least and I will never forget it. That is what branding yourself is all about, making yourself unforgettable. I'll leave you to ponder on what I used to receive when ordering a CD from his company, every communication from him was just as creative.
Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the
crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can
buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland
waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private
CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, June 18th.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
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