Great amounts of time and money are spent on creating advertising campaigns to market to business owners. Cost of preparing the message to present to a business owner can easily reach as high as $10 per potential customer. The cost of acquiring a new customer is as high as tens of thousands of dollars for some businesses. Regardless of the nature of the product or service and the cost of acquisition, there is one element that is often overlooked and which can significantly affect sales results. Even among the best prepared campaigns there often is found one fundamental flaw that sabotages the whole effort. If you don’t address the recipient in the proper way your letter or ad is most likely not to be read.
According to research conducted over the over the last five years, business owners have a preference in how they want to be addressed when marketed to. As a marketer to businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses you should be aware of the proper way to address these owners. Addressing business owners in the wrong way will either guarantee that you’re material isn’t read or even worse that you’re viewed in a negative way because you’ve offended them.
So, how do you increase the likelihood of your message being received and received with a positive perception?
If you want to build a positive rapport with a small business prospect start by making sure you don’t offend them.
Here is a list of the most preferred titles by which business owners like to be addressed (based on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is ‘not at all’ and 5 is ‘most preferred’:
1. ‘Owner’ or ‘Business Owner’ (4.2)
2. ‘Professional’, ’Entrepreneur’, ‘President’, ‘Company President’, or ‘Principal’ (3.4)
3. ‘Partner’,’ Managing Director’ or ‘CEO’ (2.6)
Even among the most preferred titles, the gap between the first category of titles ‘Owner’, or ‘Business Owner’ at 4.2 and the second category of titles ‘Professional’, ‘Entrepreneur’, ‘President’, ‘Company President’, or ‘Principal’ at 3.4 is significant enough to have a notable impact on the results of your marketing campaign. Other possible titles to address business owners scored lower than the above.
Of course if you are targeting your marketing efforts to a specific group, such as accountants or lawyers who own their own firms then ‘professional’ could be equally if not more effective. However, there is a self-perception among most business owners, even professionals, that they are the boss, the owner, a god in their own kingdom with all the risks and rewards. So it is no wonder that they like to be addressed as the ‘Owner’.
To be sure you’re using the proper titles for your specific target prospects, conduct your own research and track your own results. Try splitting your next marketing campaign using two or three titles and see which ones produce the best results. Another approach would be to simply conduct a survey by calling a few of your prospects and asking them how they prefer to be addressed in marketing correspondence. You’ll be surprised how co-operative most business owners are in helping other business owners improve their business (as long as you’re not a direct competitor).
If you have a limited budget, then running pilot campaigns to refine things like your title is a great way to make sure that you get a return for your investment. First get it right and then roll it out on a larger scale.
As a rule of thumb, the easiest and most effective way to maximize the return on your marketing efforts is very simply to address your prospect as either ‘Owner’ or ‘Business Owner’.
from: Baldo Minaudo