Use a Sledgehammer! How to Get Attention From Clients

“Wanting people to listen, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you’ll notice you’ve got their strict attention.”

This was Kevin Spacey’s statement in the movie “Seven”. And he was right.

Marketing is hard work. It is not everyone’s cup of tea. 

New brands and businesses are getting launched and old ones are closing shop daily.

We all have a product or service to sell and customers are in the market looking for a solution to their problems. Customers say they can’t find the right supplier. And suppliers say they can find the right customer.  

The suppliers are certainly spending lots of money on advertising. But they are not getting the customers to click or buy.

The hardest part is always getting the customers’ attention to the advertisement. We are drowning in a sea of advertisements, and we are trying to ignore as much as we can to stay focused.

So the marketers’ job is to focus on how to get the customers’ attention first.

I will discuss a few time-tested tricks to get customers’ attention.

Use handwritten Envelopes/Letters

This is my favorite method. In this day and age, no one sends a handwritten letter. People try to avoid sending letters mostly.

The letters I get are all typed. Even before I open them, I realize I will throw them in the bin after opening.

So whenever I get a handwritten envelope/letter, I get excited. They get my attention and I read them carefully.

Pro-tip: There are services where you can send your clients handwritten envelopes and letters.

Send a courier to hand deliver to the client

If you hand deliver a letter to your client, that will ensure their attention. Savvy marketers send important letters to high-value clients in this method.

A marketing guy sent his resume to a marketing director in this method. The courier waited for the director for two hours in the reception until the director finished his meeting and came to the reception to take the letter.

Send a dollar bill

This is a time-tested method. 

Before the age of the internet, top marketers used to staple a dollar bill on their important sales letters. 

Although this increases the cost of the campaign, you can use the method based if the campaign or clients are high value. 

Break the norm

There are established norms in any industry. This ensures people abide by certain rules. 

People and customers get monotonous with similar logos, brand colors, and designs. 

The savvy marketers will break the norm and stand out in an ocean of cookie-cutter advertisements.

Don’t use negative emotions

One thing to keep in mind is not to use misleading claims or negative emotions. 

You can write an email subject line saying “Your family is in an accident”. That line will make me open the email.

If I then see an ad for an item unrelated to safety or accident, I will immediately mistrust the brand and the advertiser.

Avoid controversial statements or negative charges in the ad.

Conclusion

If you can not get the customer’s attention, you have wasted the advertising money.

All the effort and time that went into the production of the advertisement is down the drain.

People put way too much effort into the body but do not spend time to tease the reader to grab attention.

We have to beat the urge to work on the body and put more effort into the attention-grabbing part of the post or copy or article.

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