Imagine you’re brainstorming the copy for your next direct mail piece or marketing campaign. Your team comes up with what seems like a great idea for your campaign, then you send out the mail piece and it flops completely. It doesn’t connect with customers and the response rate is abysmal.

Obviously, if this happened to you, you’d be discouraged. But even more, you’d probably just be confused. Why did the message you so carefully crafted flop with your audience? It was so persuasive! You spent so much time on it! What gives?

The truth is that making your messages stick with your audience doesn’t have to be some mysterious hit-or-miss art. There are techniques and ways to make sure that your message lands with your target market. We’ll share three with you.

Keep it Simple
The biggest problem with most marketing messages is that they’re written by the experts. And unfortunately, that means that they get written at an expert-level, instead of writing in a way that the audience can understand.

Keeping your messages simple is hugely important. Since you’re the expert in your field, you understand why your product’s minute features make it excel over the competition–but your customers probably don’t care. They want to know the important basics, not the gritty details. Make sure your message doesn’t go over their heads.

Stay Concrete
The best way to get someone to understand your message is by making it concrete. Instead of talking in statistics and abstraction, give an example.

For instance, you can sell your mirror cleaner by getting technical: “Use our foam aerosol, non-ammoniated cleaning spray for a wholesome clean surface!” Or you can tell it concretely: “Imagine seeing your face more clearly than you ever have before–and without any annoying streaks.” Getting concrete is more compelling—especially to a non-expert.

Be Surprising
The best marketing messages avoid clichés and puffery. Today’s customers have heard the generic marketing messages so often that they don’t even register with them anymore. If you want your campaign to make an impact, you need to do something unexpected.

For instance, if you’re trying to convince your audience to avoid driving when they’re over-tired, this message might do the trick: Driving while sleep-impaired is ten times worse than driving drunk.

That statistic works because it surprises us—and most importantly, is actually true, according to MythBusters.

Next time you design a marketing campaign, make sure your messages are simple, concrete and surprising.