Have we forgotten the sizzle?

Are you familiar with the phrase sell the sizzle not the sausage? I sometimes think that in the rush to ‘sell’, the sizzle gets overlooked. From my personal experience I remember when my desk, sited on the floor above the office cafeteria, caused me to pile on pounds in just a few weeks after they began cooking up bacon rolls at 10am. The smell sold that bacon roll to me far better than any two-for-one pricing offer or even a picture. It helped me imagine the experience of holding and tasting that bacon role. Mmmm. I got the habit under control eventually but took a lot of willpower!

The better known anecdote is that of the Mercedes car sales person who outsold his colleagues month after month yet only used up a fraction of his allotted test-drive time. How? By showing them the logo on the key fob and talking to them about craftsmanship, prestige and how it felt to be the owner of a Merc…the sizzle not the sausage.

The way you talk about your products and services is all part of the sizzle. This is the power of content. Once you remember that your customer wants to buy into the feeling and the story not just the commercials of your proposition — the ethos and pathos, not just the logos — you can truly create content that sells. Hard facts and financial offers can pique interest, but it is these softer qualities that persuade, that help your prospective customers imagine what it would be like to be the owner of one of your solutions. How important is it, therefore, that all your content, in print, online and for face-to-face communication is written in a way that helps people engage with you, almost taste your brand and fire their imagination? Of course that’s what we do so our answer’s obvious.