Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Low-cost Advertising: The Compelling Elevator Pitch



The topic for the June meeting of the Microfocus group was ‘Advertising on a Shoestring’. But instead of the usual round table of brainstorming, suggestions and personal experiences, Rob McTague treated us to a powerpoint presentation on the Compelling Elevator Pitch – a 10-30 second mini commercial that sells you and your business. I’ve googled and links, advice and suggestions on the compelling elevator pitch are everywhere.

Rob gave us three strategies for applying your compelling elevator pitch:
1.    Networking.
You’re at, say, a business function and someone asks what you do. You might say “I sell real estate.”

Yawn. 

How about you do it like this: “I work for XXX real estate company. And if I don’t sell your home in 29 days, I do it for free!”

And what do they say now? “Wow! How do you do that?”

And you might say, “That’s the guarantee of our company because we take such pride in selling homes fast!" 

That’s the guarantee of your company, and you’ve turned it into a compelling elevator pitch. But it doesn’t have to be the guarantee. It could be simply what you do that you take to a compelling elevation:

“I’m a masseur and people say my fingers have a magic touch.”

“I’m an accountant and I’m very popular with business people who hate doing their tax returns.”

“I’m a beautician and people say I make them look ten years younger!”

That’s the 10-second pitch and the person is interested. So what’s the next step? They might ask for more details, in which case you have another compelling elevator pitch. All down pat of course, so you have it at the ready whenever anyone asks. Or they ask for your business card. But what happens to most business cards? They end up in the rubbish bin. And that brings us to:


2.    Business Cards
Most business cards just give your name, your occupation and your contact details, and have nice little graphics to make them eye-catching. They don’t sell you, so they end up in the rubbish bin. So what do you do? You rework your business card so it has a compelling elevator pitch. But it has to be a very short one as business cards are very small, and it could be something like ‘No results – No fee’, ‘Want to Know How to Make $10,000 in 7 days?’ or ‘Feel Chicken about the Dentist?’

Your business card can also have links to where you promote your other compelling elevator pitches. It could be the link to your web page. Your blog. YouTube, where you have posted a video of your compelling elevator pitch.


3.    Landing Page
This is, of course, the first point of call where you promote your business. And the first thing people must see on your landing page is what is most relevant. So it is here that you have your compelling elevator pitch. The compelling elevator pitch must start with the heading, and then the sub heading. Then you might have special offers, guarantees, anything that elevates the pitch. Then finally, the Call to Action, such as filling in the Offer Box on the right hand side of the page or the Query Box where you fill in your query and post it off.

Right, so how do you get started with your compelling elevator pitch? Rob was telling us about one outfit called Leader Publishing Worldwide at www.marketingforsuccess.co.nz. From as little as $97.00 a month you have access to all their e-learning business courses and resources, including writing compelling elevator pitches, headline banks, elevator pitch templates and libraries, and quick start programs. There are even membership grants, of which Rob had two. 

Whether or not we sign up, we certainly came away with elevated ideas for our own compelling elevator pitches.

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