WHAT IS THE RIGHT VOICE FOR YOU?

by Bob McElwain

There has been a major change in the American social
structure. For the first time, many older citizens have
significant discretionary income. Among younger people with
children, the mode now is both parents working. Many couples
have very little discretionary income.

Different Folks Need Different Strokes

You simply can not talk the same way to Xers and Senior
Citizens. It won't work because the value structures differ
between these groups. And so do their attitudes. More
important, they respond differently to a given stimulus.

For the most part, buy decisions are made emotionally, then
justified later with "reason." On a website the emotional
response that triggers the buy decision comes from what is said
in the sales presentation.

This means you must know precisely who you are talking to.
It means understanding their values, attitudes, and goals.
And it means understanding what motivates them to buy.

Voice Matters

Grab a Western novel, a thriller, a mystery, and maybe a tale
of romance. Read a bit in each. Writers speak about voice, and
struggle to get it right in all of their work.

Voice is a casual term that includes style, imagery, and
emotional triggers effective with the reader. It also includes
selection of vocabulary, and such simple things as sentence
length. In short, anything that helps project a specific tone
or feeling is part of the voice that produced it.

As suggested above, the voice appropriate for Xers is
inappropriate for Seniors. And conversely.

Off-Target Input Can Mislead

Input from off-target visitors may distract you. It's
possible given sufficient input of this sort, you may be
persuaded to introduce a new product to take advantage of
apparent interest. In doing so, however, you have broadened your
focus, rather than narrowing it. This is always the wrong thing
to do.

What's more, the off-target product will strike targeted
visitors as being off key in some way, if not in fact negatively.
In the end, you are likely to drive away more targeted traffic,
than you are able to generate with the off-target product.

An Aside: If you stumble across something that seems of
interest to a significant off-target group, rather than weakening
an existing site, consider building another which can be totally
targeted to this newly defined group.

A Target Within A Target

Suppose you have decided to target Seniors. And you know
enough of their convictions and motivations to be effective in
talking with them. That is, you can relate to them in an
appropriate voice. An additional step can be helpful.

Define a subset of this group and thus narrow your target
even further. Then adjust your manner of speaking accordingly.
While you don't mind if others listen in, you write to and for
only those within your target. You use a voice specific to this
narrowly targeted subset.

For example, among seniors there are those who graduated from
college. Others have educated themselves. Many have been locked
into the business world as owners, managers, or employees. And
still others, never held a high paying job. Further, to many
women, family is all that ever mattered.

If you can define a subset of Seniors, the proper voice may
be quite different from what is needed for a different set.
Adjust accordingly.

Xers Versus Seniors

The more profitable market may be Seniors. However, if
you are an Xer, it may be best to ignore this group and target
a subset of Xers. Why? Because you hold their values and
attitudes. It will be much easier for you to find the right
voice with which to relate to your target. Seniors, on the other
hand, are likely to ignore you, unless you can adapt their values
and attitudes, and thus a voice appropriate to them.

Direct your newsletter, site content, and sales presentations
as specifically as possible to your target. Continually seek to
narrow this target even further. That some off-target visitors
may buy, is a bonus. But it in no way suggests broadening your
target to include them. Or changing the voice.There has been a major change in the American social
structure. For the first time, many older citizens have
significant discretionary income. Among younger people with
children, the mode now is both parents working. Many couples
have very little discretionary income.