1-2-18 marketing: The overrated "Branding" thing

Think of any idea that fall under the term "branding" and you will find that you actually talk about "reputation"

People tend to love big words. But the bad side effect of that is that you may think that "branding" is a rocket science while it is much more simple if you think of "building your reputation" than "building your brand" :)

-         So, building reputation = building brand

-         The most awesome thing about building your reputation is that you can get more premium prices for what you are offering

-         People love brands "good reputation" because they love to trust who they are giving their money to

-         Good reputation will get you more people, thus more money

A very important note: YOU DON'T CONTROL YOUR REPUTATION

Reputation is merely the sum of how people think of you

-         You can just influence it, try to make a good impression of high quality and to stand out in what you are offering

-         But remember that the final judgment is for the people to make. People are the ones who form the reputation not you

DO NOT be fooled by big words. Just be good and outstanding in what you do and reputation will come with time

Some notes here:

-         It takes time to make a big large improvement that will influence your "brand", so be patient about it

-         Surveys and feedbacks will help you A LOT to understand what your customer want to have better impression about you, thus better reputation

-         Always consider the thin line between "satisfying people and serving high quality service" and "being too plank and trying to get everyone in your side [the opposite of controversy])

1-2-17 marketing: Let the fight begin

An Irish proverb:

"If you want audience; start a fight!"

A famous proverb:

"Try to satisfy everyone, and you will end up satisfying no one"

-         Your business must have a soul, a character of its own.

-         No business is out there for everyone. A business must have a sort of "sharp edges". If  not, it will be very very boring

Remember the post "Remarkability"?  Being remarkable means being "controversial". Some people at some point have to hate you because the worst thing in business in to get everyone thinking "meh :I "about your business.

You better get some fans and some haters

-         When your business is remarkable and controversial, people start talking about you. Even if some of them talk bad about you , you still get attention

And a thing to know, getting attention is more than enough. When prospect customers read bad reviews about you, they get interested and go to confirm that. Some of them will turn to be your customers

So attention is all what you seek

Controversy is a good thing as long as you make it about the benefit (main value) you are offering, not for the sake of "controversy" itself.

And take care not to cross the line to the "too controversial" area. It is an easy thing to antagonize everyone in this area :)

1-2-16 marketing: Time for bed stories

A study: people since existence are so haunted by stories. We have evidence that people had tell stories since they know how to transfer experiences through generations

And the most common pattern of stories is:

-         Find a hero, that lives a normal ordinary live

-         Receive a call-to-adventure

-         Accept the call

-         Slay the dragon

-         Receive a mighty gift

-         Go back to normal life as a known hero with that mighty gift

What is that has to do with marketing? We find a way to engage that into marketing ….. telling the customers a hero story

Well, not a typical classic Greek myth. But a story about them that follow the same pattern

You just immerse them in the story, shoot them with sensory info and emotional shit that would cancel the logical parts of their brains and help them visualize the experience they will have if they buy our offer. Their human core desires will just be on fire and they will just crave to live the myth

-         People want to be heroes all the time. They want to be admired, respected and to be notorious

-         The most common form of this narrative action marketers use is "TESTIMONIALS"; which are really hero stories about previous customers who have already taken the path before. So everyone get a clear safe instructions of the journey to be that hero

So invent your story in any form you want. Make your customers heroes and yourself the sword with which they kill the dragon and get the princess 

1-2-15 marketing: Call-to-action

Many people are just great at getting customers' attention, and then they just don't go to the next step

Because getting attention won't get you any money. You have to know that:

People are sooo naive and when you take the lead in that marketing conversation, they expect you to tell them what to do next. Don't just be like "Now you know that my offer is great, and that is your decision to buy or not. I am not saying anything to you"

That is just wrong. You should literally "prompt" them to do a thing, take an action. And then they have the choice to say yes or no

That term is called "call-to-action"

You have to tell people exactly what to do next after you get their attention

The more you give them more space to think, the more effort they have to do, and the more Nos you will get as a respond for your offer

So, after getting their attention you have to

Give them a simple, short, very distinctive, clear, specific, obvious prompt to do something

Always have a call-to-action. And the best 2 would be:

1-    Asking for direct sales

2-    Ask for permission

Example of call-to-actions:

-         Give suggestion

-         Offer

-         Action to do

-         Please buy

-         Call specific number

-         Give contact info

-         Take a free sample

Very important note; remember not to cross the line between "making the customer welcoming to your prompt" and "making him feel that he is being sold to, or giving something against his will"

I used "prompt" instead of "order" to make the customer feel that the action is taken by him, not anyone else 

1-2-14 marketing: Hook them!

Here is another ramification of the people being busy and having no time; they tend to ignore complicated messages. We just filter them. May remember them for a while but then forget about them.

Think about a complicated long explanation of some theory that you have read, or an interesting YouTube video with a long complicated name. you just forget about the details, and you have to search for it to read about it again in order to remember them

One of the best marketing tools is what is called A "HOOK":

Something that grabs people attention and shows the primary, main benefit.  And is really designed for very busy people

It is usually:

-         Short, in form of slogan – title – tagline

-         Simple

-         Catchy

-         Unusual , different from what people are used to

-         Interesting

-         Doesn't take effort to get, read, understand

-         Convey the primary value, benefit

Getting a hook is not an easy task; it comes with experiment and continuous iteration. Mainly the usual way to get started is to:

-         Write down ideas, benefits, and things that you want to communicate to customers.

-         Brainstorm lists of words

-         Play with combinations

One you have your hook, use it everywhere :) That would very very effective marketing plan.

1-2-13 marketing: Ask for approach

People nowadays are pretty strict regarding their personal space. They have limited time and energy, and they just don't like being spammed by things that don't matter to them

And we spoke before about how annoying that would be to them. Spammers just would get the opposite of what they hope for. These people would hate just these offers and may convey these negative reviews to prospect customers

-         Spamming means that you advertise to a very large number of people hoping that a small percent of them (your prospect customers) get interested and go for your offer.

Notice the difference here between this and the concept of going to where your prospect customers who are already interested- gather

Spamming is very ineffective, expensive, and has far less response if not opposite results. It is more of a harm-doer than benefit-doer

So AVOID SPASMS! The best way of approaching people is to

-         Identify your prospect customers

-         Get their contact info, prepare your contact strategy

-         Get attention by

-         Ask for permission to approach (that would not be a problem at all. If you are in the right place and time for them, you will get that. And if not, you are safe, and they will respect you for respecting their time and privacy)

-          You get permission

-         And follow up

Very important note is to use that permission, not abuse it. Over use that permission will be just spamming

Remember that the best way to get their permission is to ask for it, or leave a door opened to give them the chance to approach if they are interested 

1-2-12 marketing: Free samples for everyone :D

A quote:

"To charge nobody nothing is a guarantee of no profit. Getting attention is not the same as getting paid"

-         You just can't everything for free all the time, that would be no business

-         However, one of the best ways to getting attention "the near goal of marketing" is to give something upfront for free. People will live the experience and test the value without any feeling of risk, being unsafe or uncomfortable or being tricked

-         This strategy has one disadvantage (Guess what?); it doesn't pay

-         So you have to come to a point that you stop giving away and start trading

-         You should of course have something prepared to offer by the point you start asking for money 

-         The  most common ways of doing that is

1-    Give away all your "value form" for some time, and then ask for money to continue using it (test-drive, full product trial version … etc.)

2-    Give away part of your "value form" and ask for money to enjoy 100% of it (samples, free incomplete version… etc.)

3-    Give away something of what you are offering but not in the same form you are offering it (make it less comfortable, part of it ….. like watermarks on videos)

1-2-11 marketing: Frame your speech

In conversations we don't tell everything. Rather, we tend to speak only about things that matter, emphasize stuff and de-emphasize other topics, stress on some words and sentences and just mention others without any importance

That is called "Framing", and we do that all the time. And since marketing is all about communication, you just can't give all the information about your product. That would be impossible in terms of your time and your customers' time

Communication is always compressed. And you have to follow this rule also in marketing

"Framing" can be so effective if you understand it and use it right and in no manipulative way. Examples:

-         "Invest X money in that" instead of "that would cost you X money" …. That would give them the feeling that they are giving money, not losing money. Though it is the same meaning at the end

-         "You will pay X less than ---------- " instead of "we cost X money"

-         "This place is more intimate, warm and welcoming" instead of "this place is smaller than the other one"

Small ethical note here; use "framing" all the time to focus on the benefits and to stress things in the positive side, but if there are any serious important info, people have the right to know about them. So don't be manipulative and omit certain info that would harm your customers. That would just be against your favor on the long run 

1-2-10 marketing: Let them live your product

The most effective way to provoke your customers' desires is to make them visualizing how they are with the product

The mind just rationalizes, analyze and make very logical and rational decisions when it is detached from the experience. But once it is engaged in the experience and is full of sensory feelings, that wild irrational feeling of desire we have talked about strikes and stays on top of any attempt to take logical decisions. Evil, isn't it? :)

Most businesses that can make the customer experience as much sensory information as they can, they go for it. Think of test-drive, take puppies home, try the product in the store, take products home … etc.

And even they try to transfer the experience over the TV and commercials to the customers. So you would see most commercials full of sensory messages trying to convey the experience of having the product

When people live this experience, they move from the place of (I don't own this but I would love to) to (I own this already and I don't wanna lose it)

They move from "DESIRE" [to experience the feeling] to "FEAR" [of losing that awesome feeling of having it]. Fear is much more stronger and urging instinct and more driving to take action.

Whatever your business is, find a way to get your customers in the experiment and watch them craving for what you are offering 

1-2-9 marketing: Desire

-         Before people buy something they have to "want" it first

-         Desire is a profound human instinct, we have it in the wildest form that doesn't fade over time, only controlled by social and civilization layers we create

-         People are busy, and a lot of things compete for their attention. So if you just aim by your marketing to only get their attention; they will just skip you

-         PEOPLE LOVE TO BUY, NOT TO BE SOLD TO 

-         It is impossible to make someone buy if they don't desire it in the first place

-         Your marketing should all focus on provoking that "desire" by reminding, encouraging, presenting, giving samples and gifts ….. etc.

-         You just make people desire (enter that wild primitive feeling of "I want this right now") and you will have no effort selling

-         The essence of marketing is that "you know already that people want your product, just be there when they are ready to perceive your product and provoke their desire and it will be as easy as pie to make sales"

1-2-8 marketing: Addressability

This one is easy: if your customers are very hard to reach, to deliver, to address, and it takes a lot of effort to sell your thing; usually it wouldn't be worth it

Addressability answers a very important question: How easy are your customers to reach

High addressability markets will make marketing so easy for you. However, you will meet a lot of competition

There are open chances in low addressability markets that need some special products with unusual conditions (urgent, sensitive, private, embarrassing, far, rare, nothing gather them, illegal :)  … etc.). These markets are very profitable if you know how to reach them (find their gatherings, create a way to gather them, reach them individually … etc.)  

The Internet made it very easy to address both low and high addressability markets. Make use of that! 

1-2-7 marketing: Entry– Exit gates

People enter and exit businesses markets all the time. Examples:

-         Children products: as soon as you have/adopt a baby, you start being receptive to all that world of products that you were so ignorant and didn't give a F about

-         Gillette: as soon as you grow hair

-         Insurances, any new type of products that you want to buy: land mowers, tablets, laptops … etc.

In all the previous examples, you just moved from just being blind about all the advertising they are making (and that is alright for them, they weren't targeting you back then) - to being so receptive to that, and actually seeking information about this market

-         In some businesses there is/are very well-defined point/s of market entry. And some other businesses these entry points are vague and hard to define. Some other business no one yet has put his hands on the market entry points. And some businesses entry points don't exist. Think about restaurants

-         The successful brands identify these entry points and just be there as soon as people enter them (be potential customers). E.g. Gillette give students at secondary schools free Mach 3 razors

Also there are exit points after which it is no use to continue market to the people there, they just won't see you

                -   So, it works like that:

-         You are in the blind spot

-         Entry point/s

-         Your customers

-         Exit point/s

-         In the blind spot again  

Work very hard to define these entry and exit points, focus all your marketing where it is effective, and just be there as soon as they enter your customers circle 

Some main ideas of entry/exit points:

-         Birth/ Death

-         New products

-         New jobs

-         Certain age

-         Certain income level/increase/decrease

-         Moving in/out

-         Relationships

-         Accidents

-         Losses

-         Dangers/ disasters

-         New service/s

-         Seasons/ months/ days

-         Different feelings

-         Life events

-         Intersected businesses 

1-2-6 marketing: "PITA" customers

-         A very strange concept, you do all the time but you never think of it that way:

It is effective to turn away some customers who are willing to pay for your product

Think how many times you have a very bad customer that just makes you lose it, drain your energy and make you lose 3 good customers in order to stay serving him. Soooo bad that you had to treat him very badly to get rid of him

They are called "PITA" customers = "Pain In The Ass" customers

They will pay you for that you are offering, but will make you regret that and give you very hard time till you make the selling, with after sell-services, and will just absorb most of your time and effort that the final result of dealing with them (do not consider money only) will not be in your favor by any means

Some potential customers are just not the customers you want to deal with.

That is a marketing term; "qualification" which means:

Separating customers you want from customers you don't want

-         You can do this by marketing, state what you expect your customers to be, not to waste the time of yours and the time of these PITA customers

-         You should have some conditions and statements that you should make it very clear to your customers so that they won't waste your time to figure out at the end that the price range is too high for them, the delivery time doesn’t suite them ….etc.

-         You have to figure that the customers you want to deal with by yourself

-         You have to focus on the most profitable, comforting-to-deal-with customers

Even if that PITA customer has become already your customer you can get rid of him by many ways: refund, send him to a competitor, gently refuse working with him again … etc.

It is that simple to just state the type of customers you want to serve  

1-2-5 marketing: They aren’t buying products

Remember what I wrote about that marketing isn't a purpose for itself, the end results we want from it is sales

Same concept here: people are not paying for products, services to just have/own them, there is end results/purpose behind that. Things are not what they care about. "Value forms" are ways to end results

Most products are secondary to a primary desire/purpose that drive people to pay for that specific "value form"

So, "END RESULTS" are what buyers looking for in the stuff they pay money for

-         There is this quote "People don't want to buy a .25 inch drill. They want to buy a .25 inch whole" 

-         You need to search for the reason behind the desire to buy what you are offering, and focus your marketing on that. Instead of just stating the features of your "value form"

All brands stress on marketing the end results instead of the actual features. For example:

1-     Beauty brands sell the end results of what you are getting when you buy this 200$ lipstick

2-    Car companies sell the social status, the thrill, the experience of riding their cars

3-    Real estate companies sell the quality of life, not the houses

4-    Universities are selling the connections, the feeling that you will find a job easily right after graduation, the status you will be at when you join them

And so on, no one is talking about the dimensions, the area, the versions, the upgrades or all those little details.

Some marketing campaigns never say a word about the product itself

Marketing is most effective when focus on the end results, because that is what people actually want

1-2-4 marketing: Ignore the world

Here is a fact you may see devastating, but actually it is not:

There are about 7000,000,000 persons in the world, 99.99999% of them don't want to give you their money

-         That is totally fine. You don't need to have all that

-         Attempting to reach all those people would be just a waste of time, money and effort, if not a wrong thing to do (think of spamming and it is bad effects, people will hate you and convey that impression to your probable purchaser, everybody lose here).

-         You need only to reach for the "PROBABLE PURCHASER " and just ignore everyone else

-         So, focus on spending most of (if not all) your marketing efforts on your most receptive customers

The more you can define your most receptive customers (your most probable purchasers), the more effective your marketing will be 

1-2-3 marketing: I advertise myself :D

About the brain again:

Even the most exciting things are boring after a while and the brain categorize it as normal, boring thing that we are not interested In (anymore). It then filters it

Here is a thing about marketing:

-         People usually trust each other's reviews and opinions more than the usual advertising strategies

So it goes like that: make people talk about your thing, they get interested and excited, they buy

The question here is: how to make people talk about your business?

A: MAKE IT WORTH TALKING ABOUT

There are zillion ideas to make that happen, but some of the most famous strategies:

1-    Design a brand new idea in the business that never existed before

2-     Make the product weird, different, remarkable enough: strange design, strange shape, packaging, remarkable uniform, remarkable customer service  … etc.

3-    Add a value that only you offer it among your competitors, something like no tips strategy, free shipping, a special discounts, surprise gifts, birthday gifts to customers … etc.

Anything remarkable, strange or even good enough that people find it worth a while to talk about

By this way, your business will advertise and sell itself without paying too much money, effort and time on usual marketing and advertising

Finally, know that such remarkable great ideas don't have to be there on you mind from start, they come with continuous iteration and learning about your business.

Another thing, you may come up with a great idea that your competitors may clone, or it just may lost its remarkability with time. So you have to always watch their effect and keep a note of any possible remarkable idea that you may use afterwards to keep your business interesting and talking about itself:)

1-2-2 marketing: Receptivity

-         A famous fact: our sensory systems are bombarded all the time with signals that our brain can't deal with and analyze. So what does our brain do? It filters data all the time. Our brains are actively filtering date that doesn't matter to us and giving care only to what matters to us. Even when we are asleep our brain does that; think how it filters sounds except you familiar faint and weak alarm clock sound, it just recognizes it and act according to that

-         That filtering is not a permanent thing, it changes all the time according to

-         The signal identity: I don't care about sports, so I ignore commercials about sports events

-         The time: I am researching right now, so I am not interested in the newest Samsung phone now, even though I am a tech nerd

-         The place:  I am shopping in the mall right now, I am open to offers that I usually ignore anywhere else

-         signal that we don't care about, our brains just ignore it, skip it

-         Our brains even seek for info that we are interested in, not just actively pay attention to it.

Receptivity is:

A measure of how much someone is interested in a specific thing  

-         Factors of receptivity are so decisive that we tend to consider interesting signals that don't fit in the right time or place as spams. And our brain isn't objective and fair about that, it add a negative mark to such things

So pay attention not to spam, just be there where people expects you and when they are looking for you, ready for you

-         Reach your market in a way that they are likely to be receptive to it

That is just so important that it worth paying money, time and effort to learn about your potential customers

So focus on

1-    Who I am targeting?

2-    What I am marketing, what they are interested in?

3-    When is the right time to approach them?

4-    Where is the right place to approach them?

5-    How to reach them, in which way, what is the best technique?

6-    How much pressure is the right amount not to be considered as spam, and to be enough to attract attention?

Tip: the best and easiest way known now to apply these questions to is advertising on search engines: people are in the mode to look for info regarding your business in that way (searching over the net)

So, make this you idol and try to validate these 6 questions in any way or method of marketing you are thinking of :) 

1-2-1 marketing: A tool, not a purpose

Don't you forget that about marketing: don’t be so immersed by it. Marketing is just a tool to achieve better sales

Think of sales as the goal, and marketing is the tool to that

Getting famous is not the goal if it doesn’t achieve the purpose behind it; getting paid for what you are offering

Point made clear? OK. Let us move on to the "getting attention" part

-         Marketing goal (forget about sales now) is to convert some ordinary people (from the targeted market of course)  to prospect customers (grab their attention)

N.B. the sales goal is converting the prospect customers to real paying ones

-         Getting attention is preceded by another inevitable step; that people care already about what you are offering. That should be validated in the "value creation section "

Think about advertising Viagra everywhere for 100 years to a WOMAN  

-         Surrounded by media all the time, know that your prospect attention is very crowded and time-limited, and all brands and businesses in the world are competing for his time and attention

-         Any attention you are able to attract must be earned, you have no option in this fierce wilderness of competition

-         Marketing is so demanding and competitive part of any business. And it is just unlimited regarding means and resources. So to be effective and direct; look for the attention of the people that matter = target the people to whom your product add-value is important and interesting

-         So, long story short; high quality marketing is targeting the interest of people who will care

Tip; a study shows that it takes 7 advertisements to get a customer to buy something (if they are already interested in the add-value)