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Marketing & Advertising Strategies
Always Sell To New Eyes And New Ears
The Two Hardest Things For An Advertiser To Do Are: 1) step into a prospect's shoes and really understand what makes him buy, and 2) find out how prospects react to marketing and advertising efforts. It's easy to get caught up in thinking that just because you spent $14,000 - or $140,000 - on your latest batch of ads that every person on Earth saw the ads and paid really close attention to them. Well, generally speaking, they didn't. For the most part, people won't even notice your advertisements until they're in the market for what you're selling. So its important that you make sure you always structure your advertisements so that a person hearing or seeing them for the first time has enough information to take action ... based on that one single ad. Don't make ads that run in a series that build on one another until they reach a crescendo. Don't assume that the prospect already knows anything about what you're selling.
Here's An Example from a seminar business to illustrate the point. They offered people a free seminar preview audio tape to lower the risk, and prospects would either fax in a request or leave a message on a voice mail. At first, the company would send the audio tape out in a normal envelope along with some information on the seminar. Results were marginal. The mistake was, that by the time prospects got the tape two to four days later, about 35% of the people had forgotten they even requested the tape ... and the plain envelope was making no impression to spark their memory. And by time the company followed up with a phone call 7 to 10 days after the initial request, a full 50% or more had either not realized they had the program, or worse, they didn't even remember asking for it. 5% didn't even remember asking for it even after it was explained to them exactly where they would have seen the ad and that they were the ones who made the initial contact. It was assumed that the prospect's ears were conditioned to expect the message ... when in reality, they didn't care.
The process was changed so when a prospect called, instead of going to voice mail, they spoke to a live person who took them through a short script that explained what the seminar was all about. Then they were told they would receive a preview package in big, long box, and to look for it in a couple of days. The package was sent via priority from the post office 2-day mail service, in a 38" long triangular red, white, and blue mailing tube that simply commanded attention when it sat on someone's desk. Inside there was a big envelope that contained the tapes; printed on the envelope was a big "SPLAT" with the words "Beat Your Competition Into A Demoralized Quivering Pulp" and reminded them "The Seminar Preview Audio Tape You Requested" were inside. Because prospects were told to be looking for it on the phone, and because the package was so unusual - not to mention the fact they perceived the package to cost a lot of money, prospects remembered the company. The follow-up call was then much more effective because, just about 100% of the people instantly remembered who the company was. And they were all favorably impressed - It worked great.
Take This Message To Heart For Advertising: Don't - absolutely, 100% - Do Not assume that your prospects know anything about you, or your industry for that matter. You want to build a case for your product or service, just like an attorney build's a case. What kind of people do they put on the jury? People who don't know a thing about the case. If the judge finds out one of the jurors does know something about the case, the judge kicks them off the jury. They want fresh eyes, And you've got to sell to fresh eyes too.
Here's Another Example - this time of a company in the pool table industry. They were selling coin-operated pool tables to companies that would place them in restaurants, bars, bowling alleys and so forth. These kinds of companies are called "operators," and there are only about 5,000 of them in the whole country. Since there were so few operators, relatively speaking, the company assumed that all of the operators already knew everything about their tables. And since most of the operators were family owned businesses that had been around forever, plus the company was one of only two major players in the industry, that seemed like a fair enough assumption. The only problem with that assumption was - it was FALSE.
When the company realized how far off-base their assumptions were they decided to change their approach - by promoting specific qualities of the pool tables. The focus on specific pool tables qualities centered around the operators ability to MAKE MORE MONEY with this particular brand of tables. So several advertisements were put together that were pretty good, but company executives didn't like them. They said things like, "Operators already know everything that's in these new ads. They aren't going to fall for any 'Our Tables Make Them More Money' stuff. They'll see right through it." Well, actually, the executives were giving operators way too much credit for knowing "everything" about the industry in general and their tables specifically. Long story short, the ads were run and they got the most overwhelming response they had ever received. By integrating some risk lowering strategies, their ads generated hundreds of responses and requests for more information. And the company went from losing money to $7 million dollars in profit in only 10 months.
If You Would Like To Learn More about risk-lowering strategies, attend one of our MONOPOLIZE Your MARKETPLACE events and programs.
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