What are the most effective ways to address objections in a content proposal?

Knowing your audience is marketing 101. And I’m talking beyond their demographics, assumed interests, “white male that has 2.3 kids and owns a boat” kinda thing. Go deeper. What kind of content is your audience consuming on the web? Are you sure? Identify what drives them to consume and engage with that content and you identify their WHY, and that becomes the lens you speak to them through.

Yes! If you listen… everyone will tell you how to sell them and everyone will tell you how to love them! Parallel in business and personal!

See them. Know them. What do they want? What do they need? Understand their viewpoint. Craft content for them. Make it resonates with your audience. Build trust.

“AI and the LinkedIn community” suggest knowing your audience, utilizing the PASTOR framework, handling objections with FAB, using stories and examples, and asking questions and listening. But true success begins with avoiding buzzwords and trends, and focusing instead on sincerity. At a basic personal level, how do you know your audience? Regardless of how well you think you know them, get to know them. Deeper. Get to know them more intimately. Of course the nature of your business dealing will come with expectations of what is acceptable, but are you willing to tear down these and all other walls to build genuine relationships, one not just with a client, but with the person you are fortunate enough to have been allowed audience with?

Knowing what your audience has tried before allows you to address objections before the reader uses them. Helping your audience feel empowered and interested in further reading your content

Even when your content is of great quality the essential factor impacting the result depends on what content proposal consists of. Before even planning the project, it is critical to deeply define the clear needs/desires of the content. Correct questioning works wonders at the initial stage when designing any content piece. An amazing content proposal is always solution-oriented. Also, every content starts From the audience and ends with the audience.

Knowing audience is the key aspect in all phase and types of marketing. Your business scope, strategies, content specially should not be around your competitors. It should focus on what the audience need.

The biggest mistake that I see people making here is trying to write to too broad of an audience. It may be great that a lot of different people want to buy your product, but you have to choose a very specific persona to prioritize, and then only once you have mastered that persona, can you branch out to targeted messaging to other buyer personas. Get really good at your core audience first, and then expand in a way that is targeted. If you try to speak to multiple audiences at once, you may contradict yourself and come off as untrustworthy. You can add audience complexity once you have a solid foundation.

Picture your ideal client/customer, and name them. Consider their circumstances and difficulties. Look at who is already engaging with your content and what other content they are engaging with.

It's crucial to know your audience, but in the end, what they want is empowerment. It's talking to their future self, to their desires.

PASTOR helps structure your responses. P - Probe to learn more. A - Accept parts of the objection that may be valid. S - Stress key benefits they'll miss. T - Turn to your solution. O - Obtain commitment to reconsider. R - Redirect the conversation to closure.

While the entire PASTOR framework is great to use focusing on the amplifying the pain point and repercussions of not solving it becomes crucial. Providing solution is also benefiting if you can articulate it in conjunction with the pain point.

How you respond to the objection solves half the problem. F - Feel. Express empathy for their concern. A - Admit parts that hold merit. B - Bridge to benefits. Pivot to positives they'll gain. A logical response with a weighted response leaning either ways does the magic for the engaging parties.

This is really objection handling 101. Relate to your client and where they're coming from. Acknowledge which of their concerns are valid and you understand where they're coming from. Finally, walk them through how you're going to deliver what they need and want.

Stories stick. Examples engage. Craft compelling narratives. Draw in emotions with imagery. Make objections seem surmountable. Plant seeds of change. Use data.

Examples and show and tell are the most effective ways to get clients on board with your vision. I once had a client who hired us to do a video for him. I wrote a script and when we sent it for review he re-wrote the entire thing in a format that was more suited for an email. In preparation for our next meeting, I recorded myself reading both his version and mine and started the mtg listening to both recordings. My client immediately said he understood how much better mine was and that we didn’t even need to discuss it further without me saying a thing. He also trusted our recommendations more in the future because he valued that we wouldn’t just tell him what he wanted to hear, but that we wanted to get him the best outcome.

When you are truly engaged with your audience, you are able to find common ground. Building trust and rapport is much easier when you both come from a similar background - whether that is cultural, work-related, or something else entirely. This enables you to speak to them as peers, rather than clients or customers.

Questions uncover truths. Listening builds rapport. Don't assume you know. Let them share freely. Create dialogue. No monologues. Solutions come through understanding.

By asking questions, you can clarify your own offering and refine it. By engaging with your clients/customers, you can better meet their needs and ultimately offer a better solution. This will result in a more satisfying interaction for you both, as well as growth!

Cuando se tiene una propuesta que inicialmente va alineada a los objetivos de campaña, venta, etc, es más fácil de entender para los receptores, por ello es que funciona bien a la hora de presentar "contar la historia" de cómo se llegó a esa propuesta. Para abordar las objeciones primero es importante que la propuesta sea robusta, bien fundamentada y con argumentos que respalden la idea en sí.

Stay flexible. Test responses. Refine approach. Objections show where messaging misses the mark. Let go of ego. Make it about their needs. Meet them where they stand through care, clarity, and respect.

I’ve gotten a lot of success with clients by providing them two options when I want to push them further: a conservative option and a dream big option. I’ll then build out examples for each and pros/cons for each. One time, clients were scared to take a risk I was proposing and I got them to present the two options to their group of stakeholders. The more bold option sparked discussion and a version of it was ultimately adopted, landing my client a promotion. Presenting two options and then putting your best effort into the direction you want to go can take the emotion out of trying to influence your client and examples help flesh out the “why” of your recommendations.

It’s important to have fun with your audience, in addition to offering them value in terms of products, solutions, or education. By enjoying special days together, commiserating over difficulties, or celebrating wins, you create a connection that is more likely to last.

Ask open ended questions about what makes them think the way they do. Is it tradition, the boss's expectations, correlation with returns or something else? It will help you understand their perspective. Presenting your point becomes easy after that.