My 5 year old son has only received pocket money on an ad-hoc basis, so my wife and I thought it was time for him to start earning weekly pocket money (with a few conditions attached). While he was playing with his Matchbox cars, we called him over and explained how it would work. We thought it was pretty exciting news because it would mean that he could save up and buy some of the toys that he's been wanting. However, as soon as we had finished talking he simply said, "Can I go back to my Hot Wheels now?"

That certainly wasn't the reaction that we expected. What went wrong? Was the concept of more pocket money of no interest (excuse the pun) to him? Did we not communicate the benefits well enough?

I think it was simply an issue of timing. We had interrupted him playing with his toy cars and continuing that play was his priority. The timing was based on our agenda, not his. In fact, we talked to him later. He is super excited about the pocket money and, in typical kid-fashion, is trying to find a million chores around the house to earn more pocket money.

Sometimes your marketing efforts may be similar to mine above. If you are not getting the conversions that you want, then critique the message and medium, but also review the timing. It doesn't matter how important or valuable your message is, if your clients are not ready to hear it then it will fall on deaf ears.

This concept is very relevant to your external marketing. Consider what the prospect or client is doing at the time that they will be exposed to your marketing message. Do they really want to hear from you at that time? But also think about things like your website's content order. Do you have calls to action and response points on the appropriate pages? It may be unrealistic that visitors will be ready to call you after only viewing your homepage!

Remember that it's your client's or prospect's judgement of relevance, importance and timing that counts, not yours.

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Posted in: General, Strategy