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Now, people who know me well will probably have a good laugh at the irony of this week’s posting.  You see, I’m not what you’d call a “smiler.”  Sarcasm tends to be my language, and I have…well, let’s just say I tend to have a lawyer’s perspective on much of the world.

Having said that, I’m getting tired of hearing about the end of the world, or at least, the end of American democracy/free-market capitalism as we know it.  Yeah, things aren’t good right now.  And if you’re hoping for my perspective on Bailout II–The Return of TARP, our new president, or free market economics in general, buy me a beer sometime and we’ll talk.  For purposes of this blog, however, I’m going to stick to messaging and marketing. 

I learned a valuable lesson about my target market, the title and settlement services industry, a few years ago.  It was my job to market a new compliance seminar (or “leg/reg show”, if you like) to these folks.  Now, law isn’t sexy.  We all know this.  And marketing a conference about law…well, it ain’t sexy, either.  Resorting to the time-honored axiom of selling by appealing to fear or greed, I eschewed greed and went for fear.  My designer—a very good one at that—took my instructions to heart.  We were going to scare up our attendance.  Our early campaign was, in a word, dark.  The copy, the images, the tone…all screamed “Comply or Die Slowly!”

To my amazement, the good people of the title industry—a fairly cynical people, one might say—balked at this message.  The feedback?  Too dark.  Why should one pay good money to hear about the end of the world? The conference ended up doing very well, but that required a quick overhaul of our messaging, and a lot of help from my very good designer.

Believe it or not, the good people of the title industry aren’t that far removed from the good people of the retail, technology, manufacturing or whatever-else industries.  We have a limit to how much bad news we can take.  No, this is most certainly NOT a call to start blowing sunshine in all directions.  Credibility rules.  But when you’re doing your marketing in this economy, try a little less hard to tie everything into the death of the American economy.  Think twice about that Recession Sale. Don’t try to convince me that I should buy that American car for nostalgia’s sake, or to save some jobs.  Focus on the positives, on what you have to offer.  Hey, here’s a thought:  what’s your value proposition?  Believe me, people know where they are right now, and just how special this economy is.  If they can’t afford your product, your copy won’t convince them to buy it anyway.  But if they can, your negative angle may just sour them on the purchase.  So keep it positive, as best you can.