You'll hear it at least once today. A voice on the radio or an ad on TV. Or you'll read it in a print ad. Somebody will declare that they or their product will "meet your needs."
Stop for a moment and replay everything you just heard or read. They're going to meet your needs. How nice.
Do they sound for even a moment like they have a clue what your needs are? If they understood your needs, couldn't they have named them? Wouldn't they have named them?
When I hear somebody offer to "meet my needs," they may as well have taunted me with "Yo Mama!" Because the first thing I know when somebody offers to meet my needs is that they are completely focused on themselves and completely out of touch with the possibility that their product or service might do me some good.
This single phrase is the mark of an amateur writer, an unfocused marketing strategy and a second-rate product or service. I would say more, but I understand that if I am mean on my blog, I will attract a mean audience. So, Mean People, go away and meet your needs somewhere else.
So, what do you say instead of "meet your needs" when you're trying to write something and are at a loss?
Say anything but that!
Go back to the beginning and rethink the benefits of your products or services to your audience. That's what you want to tell them. You won't meet their needs. Tell them how you can change their lives, or make their lives better, or solve a problem they have. You'll make them younger, smarter, faster, thinner. Or you'll get them out of debt, kill their weeds, protect their families, solve their evil in-law problems. You get the idea.
The only way you can meet their needs is to identify these needs and then tell your audience how you solve this problem for them. Speak to their hearts. Ease their pain. Set them free.
End of rant.
Copyright 2007 by Anne Creed
