Communications 101 – Sharing Your Heart

How Can You Achieve Truly Powerful Communication With Your Target Market?

I used to be a big letter writer. With friends and family scattered over the globe, it was a truly joyful thing to sit down with a particular person in mind and compose words expressly for them. One of my favorite things to do when I was done writing was to decorate the envelope in a collage of magazine picture cutouts, just to add one more touch unique to that person.

Now, I must confess, I’m lucky if I get Christmas cards out every other year!  While Facebook and e-mail have certainly made it easier to keep in touch, they’ve encouraged some laziness in me on that end as well. That’s because writing a personal letter is significantly different than dashing off an e-mail or a wall post.

You’ve got to sit down with a pen and paper (ever noticed how actually writing for a significant amount of time gets harder on the hands the more you get used to the keyboard?). It may be special paper that you’ve picked out – something that has meaning for you or for the recipient.

You’ve got to think about what you will say, how you will put it, remember all the details, the inside jokes, the references to things only the two of you will understand. You want to draw some sort of emotion from the person receiving your letter – joy, memory, shared sorrow. All of that takes some serious thinking!

You might include something else along with your words – a photograph, a newspaper clipping, a child’s drawing. It’s a significant attempt at really reaching someone else.

Once it’s written and ready to be sealed, you’ve got to make sure you have the envelope, the stamp, the address. A trip to the post office might be involved. As busy as our lives have gotten, even these simple tasks and expenditures can seem like a lot!

Finally, you send it off. What’s your feeling when that mailbox closes over your precious cargo? You’ve created something important – something that will hold special meaning for a fellow human being - something they may keep over the coming years as a reminder of you and your relationship.

I know when I receive a letter in the mail, it’s a special day. I wait until I get home before I open it. I examine the envelope, think about who it’s from, prepare myself to really soak in what that person has to say. When I first read it I run over the words quickly, wanting to devour it all at once. Then I go back over it more slowly, feeling my joy through the big smile that is on my face.

Over the next few days I’ll think of that person more. I’ll feel singled out and special to have heard from them in such a way. I’ll talk about them more to my husband, put the pictures they may have sent on the fridge, start thinking about what I might right back to them.

It’s a profound journey – this writing of a letter. Even when it comes to someone you’ve known for years, it still takes a significant amount of effort. You hold a picture of that person in your mind as you write – a vision of them that allows you to be incredibly specific and meaningful to that person.

In business, you’re also writing letters all the time, but it never seems to even get close to the power of a real letter, written to a long-time acquaintance. Would it ever be possible to achieve that same kind of connection with your market through a letter written by you?

Well, probably not exactly the same.   But you can come pretty close!

Part of the magic connection that occurs in communication when you are writing a personal letter is the fact that you know that other person so well. The reason most people are unable to establish this kind of connection with their market is that they see their market as a group.

The problem is, you can’t write something personal to a group, because it is filled with unique individuals! You may have already heard that it’s important to write your letters as though you are only writing to one person – but do you have a real picture of that one person you are writing to in your mind? Or is it still a kind of nebulous, misty figure from the group that you are thinking of?

The idea of writing to a specific person in your market – someone you have thought about so much that you know their gender, age, appearance, marital status, where they go on vacation, and all the other little things you know about your friends – was first introduced to me by one of my mentors, Lorrie Morgan Ferrero.

I had the opportunity to take part in her She Factor Copywriting Bootcamp, where one among the many valuable lessons was exactly how to really get to know your target market (what Lorrie calls your Tarket) – and getting to know her down to the point where writing to her would become like writing a personal letter to a friend.

Imagine having that kind of power in your communication. Imagine your website copy and your e-mails being received by your target market in a similar way that they would receive a personal letter from a friend. If you could achieve that, do you think your sales might go up a little bit?

Not only that, but the real relationship you could have with your market would be incredible – so much more than simply seller to buyer! You’d have a whole new world in your hands – something not many entrepreneurs achieve on a regular basis.

If you’d like to find out how to get to know your market in this way – how to write to them on this incredibly personal level, you need to check out Lorrie’s upcoming She Factor Bootcamp. As an alumna of the course and a member of Lorrie’s mastermind group, I emphatically recommend you to this course – the value you will gain from these lessons repays the price ten-fold.

Visit here now to learn more about what’s involved (and find out how to get $200 off the price of the course for a limited time).

In the meantime, start thinking about WHO you are writing to when you communicate to your market. Narrow it down, keep that one person in your head when you sit down to write, and start watching both your sales and your relationships with your market increase.

If you’d like to explore co-creation with a freelance editor to see how you can make your message more powerful, e-mail me at kelly (at) sharingyourheartservices.com to ask your questions or set up a free consultation.