Unusual Approaches To The Web Advertising and Web Marketing
Increase Web Marketing Bottom Line Through Referrals
INTRO: WHY IT WORKS
There's a therapist in my hometown who bills 55 hours a week and has a waiting list of several months of clients trying to get in to see him.
He owns a business card. That's the extent of his marketing. He doesn't even have a sign on his door. He couldn't really market, he doesn't have the time. He's in his office 10 hours a day making money hand over fist.
I asked him how he got his practice going.
He started out as a child therapist, and said whenever he had a client, he would get in the car and go out to the school and visit with the child's teacher and the principal.
Guess who the principal or teachers recommended to parents when they felt a child needed counseling?
The man who had been out there hanging around the school showing his concern for the children.
MARKETING?
Getting referrals is not about MARKETING. It's about NEVER HAVING TO MARKET AGAIN.
Isn't that your dream?
*Clients and customers coming to YOU *People telling other people about YOU *The phone ringing or the email dinging with people wanting YOU *No more banner ads, flyers, direct mail
What we're talking about here is WORD OF MOUTH advertising, and it applies to your bottom line whether you're offering a professional service or a widget.
The reason referrals and word-of-mouth advertising work best is because it's NOT COMING FROM YOU.
Let me explain.
What if I told you I was a great coach and could help you increase your bottom line?
What if I told you I had a great widget that outperformed every other widget on the market and cost half as much.
What if I ... are you even listening to me?
Why should you be? I'm TALKING LIKE AN AD.
I OWN the practice or business. I AM the coach. I MAKE the widget. I make money if you give me your business, so you can hardly expect me to be impartial or objective.
What would you EXPECT me to say -- that my widgets stink or I'm a marginal accountant?
You know exactly what I'm going to say that my widget works best, that I'm a great coach, that my PR firm can put you in the spotlight
SINCE YOU KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO SAY, YOU TUNE OUT! You're no dummy. You know an ad when you see and hear one.
Now what if you're sitting in your office tomorrow morning and your colleague walks in, pulls a widget out of his pocket and says, "Hey, you gotta see this. You won't believe how well this thing works, and when I tell you what I paid for it, you're gonna fall outa your chair."
Did you expect him to tell you this when you came in? No, absolutely not.
And furthermore, you trust this guy, and know he's smart.
So ARE YOU LISTENING? You bet you're listening.
Now consider that you're at a cocktail party and you meet an old friend. Last time you saw her, she was down in the dumps, discouraged about her career, involved in another bad relationship, and trying to borrow $500 from you to pay the rent.
Now you see her across the room and she's absolutely radiant. She's full of life, she has on a smashing Rolex, and is draped on the arm of a man who obviously adores her.
"What happened to YOU?" you ask her.
"I got a coach," she says.
ARE YOU LISTENING?
You bet you're listening. And at the same time you're pulling out your daytimer and getting ready to write down the name, URL and phone number just as soon as you can get it.
Whatever happened to this friend of yours, you want it to happen to you. You've got the living example right there in front of you of this coach's work.
This is far more convincing than anything you could read!
A COMMON MISTAKE
Of course you want these referrals, this word-of-mouth advertising. You KNOW it works. You KNOW it's the easy and most effective way to get business, sell products, get clients.
So you go out and ASK FOR IT, right?
WRONG.
There's a real finesse to getting referrals. It happens to involve a lot of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
And what does that meanemotional intelligence? It means using your Intuition, Interpersonal Skills, Creativity, Authenticity, Intentionality.
It means setting up the process and letting it happen, but not asking. Asking for it is advertising -- it's the tune-out zone.
You don't call someone you've met once at a Chamber meeting, take them to lunch, and then pop the question -- "Hey, would you refer some of your chiropractic patients to me for coaching on stress relief?"
You might as well mail a flyer which, too, will be tossed in the wastebasket along with the 10 others in the snail mail that day.
"A referral isn't something that you ask for," says Jeffrey Gitomer in The Rochester Business Journal. "A referral is something you earn. Oh sure, you can ask for them, but it makes everyone feel awkward and will oftentimes destroy a budding relationship."
Making someone feel awkward is exactly what you DON'T DO when you're using your EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
Why doesn't this direct solicitation work?
Back to square one -- IT'S LIKE AN ADVERTISEMENT. It assaults the person, it causes them to tune out, it asks them to do something really personal, on which their reputation hangs when they hardly know you, your service, your abilities or your practice.
It makes you sound DESPERATE.
It has no CREDIBILITY.
Referrals and word-of-mouth are built on direct experience and trust. It comes from seeing the person in action, or using the product yourself, or seeing someone else use it, or experiencing it yourself. It comes from seeing the results. It comes from direct experience, or from someone you already know and trust to have good judgment.
AN EXAMPLE
I mentor coaches who want to build their practices. They always want to know what to say when someone says "What do coaches do?" They've been told they must have an elevator speech ready at the tip of their tongue, i.e., a description of what they do that they can tell someone within the length of an elevator ride.
My reply is -- don't answer the question, START DOING IT. SHOW Them what coaches do. It's a whole lot easier, and it works a whole lot better.
DON'T NIP IT IN THE BUD, LET IT BLOSSOM
Use your EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE skills to set up the process that will attract the referral naturally.
USE YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO GET REFERRALS AND INCREASE YOUR BOTTOM LINE
Whether you're selling yourself, your product or your services, use your EQ to encourage this effective means of increasing the bottom line.
Whether your "virtual" or "real," dealing with people in person or LD, global or local, selling widgets of offering financial consulting, the same rules apply.
Let them taste it, touch it, feel it.
Then you won't have to market at all!
Guerrilla Insights Into Direct Response
Direct response marketing is a lot different from indirect response marketing, although guerrillas like it best when the two are teamed up. The first is geared to obtain orders right here and right now. The second is geared to obtain orders eventually. Although a fair amount of standard, indirect marketing often is necessary to set the stage, to make prospects ready to buy, and to separate your company from strangers, it's when you initiate direct marketing that you first taste blood.
As you well know, we are living in the Age of Information, most of it very easy to obtain. But information is hardly enough for a guerrilla. And information is not insight. It's the combination of information and thought that leads to insight and it's insight that's going to make you a stand-out in the direct response arena.
The first insight for you to absorb is that direct response marketing either works immediately or not at all. Unlike standard marketing which changes attitudes slowly and ultimately leads to a sale if you go about things right, guerrilla direct response marketing changes minds and attitudes instantly and leads to a sale instantly if you go about things right.
When it works, you know it. You don't have to sit around and wonder. You don't have to wait months and months for your message to penetrate the mind of your prospect. Your time-dated direct marketing offer either results in a sale right now -- or it doesn't.
To succeed with direct marketing in any medium, remember always:
1. Your offer is omnipotent. The best presentation in the world has a major uphill battle if you make a weak or ordinary offer.
2. The market to whom you direct your message can make or break your campaign. Saying the right thing to the wrong people results in no sale.
3. What you say and how you say it is easily as important as to whom you say it. Talk in terms of your prospects and how your offer benefits them.
4. Carefully planning every cent of your campaign for maximum profits requires as much creativity as your message. Guerrillas excel at this.
5. The more that people have been exposed to your other marketing, the more readily they'll accept what you offer with your direct marketing.
Some principles of indirect marketing apply to direct marketing. You must still talk of the prospect, not yourself, and you must make a clear and cogent offer. But from that point on, direct marketing is a whole new ballgame. And its one that you can win with the insights of the guerrilla.
Stupid mistakes in horrid abundance have been made by otherwise bright companies when testing the direct response waters. Fortunately, guerrillas can learn from these blunders, making those waters a bit safer. Listing them would take an endless series of books, but it's worth your time if I make a start by providing insight into ten of the most notable:
* Failure to attract attention at the outset dooms many brilliant campaigns before they have a chance to shine. Envelopes, opening lines, mail subject lines and first impressions are the gates to your offer. Open them wide.
* Not facing the reality of a direct marketing explosion relegates your attempt to the ordinary, which means the ignored. Guerrillas say things to rise above the din, to be noticed and desired in a sea of marketers.
* Focusing your message on yourself instead of your prospect will usually send your effort to oblivion. Prospects care far more about themselves than they care about you. So talk to them about themselves.
* Not knowing precisely who your market is will send you into the wrong direction. Research into pinpointing that market will be some of the most valuable time you devote to your direct marketing campaign.
* Mailing or telephoning to other than honest prospects wastes your time and money. If you make your offer to people who don't really have a need for your offering, they'll be an incredibly tough sale.
* Initiating direct response marketing without specific objectives gives you too hazy a target for bullseyes. Begin by creating the response method for your prospects so you'll know what your message should say.
* Featuring your price before you stress your benefit will be telling people what they don't want to know yet. First, your job is to make them want what you are offering, then you can tell them the price.
* Concentrating on your price before your offer is wasting a powerful selling point. Even if your price is the lowest, people care more about how they'll gain from purchasing. Give your low price at the right time.
* Failing to test all that can be tested is a goof-off of the highest order. Test your price points, opening lines, subject lines, envelope teaser lines, benefits to stress, contact times and mailing lists to know the real winners.
* Setting the wrong price means you've failed in your testing and your research. Guerrillas are sensitive to their market and their competition, testing prices and constantly subjecting them to the litmus test of profits.
As direct response vehicles become more sophisticated and prolific, guerrillas have the insight to zero in on the exact people to contact, so as not to waste time or money on strangers. Successful mailings to strangers net as high as two percent response rates. Successful mailings to customers and qualified prospects net up to ten percent. Precision leads to profits.
The Marketing Secret Widely Known but Rarely Practiced
A successful small business marketer is a cross between an eternal optimist and a hard-nosed realist. If you don't cultivate optimism, your efforts will be sporadic, half-hearted, and uncreative.
On the other hand, if you look at the world only through "rose-colored glasses", you may develop a false sense of confidence and plunge blindly into an expensive media blitz, bypassing the necessary planning and evaluation. While optimism is an essential state of mind for pursuing any goal, it needs to be tempered with a dose of realism.
Sometimes a company's worst enemy can be self-defeating attitudes. You know it's time to regroup and re-examine attitudes and your creative process when you hear yourself or one of your associates saying, "I didn't think that ad would work, anyway!" Does that sound familiar? If you ever have serious reservations about an ad, a marketing campaign, or a sales presentation, then it's time to step back, re-evaluate it, and get some outside feedback before launching it.
Second Opinions Don't Just Apply to Your Health
Run the concept, the graphics, or the sales message by some associates, a couple friends, or even family members who are willing to offer some constructive criticism. Ask them what their immediate reaction is and why the sales message is or is not persuasive. Do they think it would compel them to take action if they were prospective customers, or does it just blend in with the hundreds of other marketing messages they're exposed to day after day? Finding a way to stand out and be noticed is often the first hurdle in a successful advertising or marketing campaign.
A more formal approach would be to assemble a focus group, usually members of the public who are paid a fee to view your commercial, evaluate your product, or critique your marketing material. The most effective way to conduct a focus group is generally to hire an experienced advertising agency or marketing research company to do it for you. They should know how to guide discussions in a productive direction and ask questions that elicit unbiased, honest, and useful responses.
If you've invested a lot of your time and thought into creating an ad, a sales presentation, or even the packaging for a product, your closeness to the campaign can make it difficult to put yourself into the customers' shoes. By getting too caught up in the creative process, the pressures of sales quotas, or your own ego, it's easy to lose your objectivity. That's when outside feedback can be really helpful and necessary.
Get In Touch With Your Inner Customer
The easiest and most natural way to start thinking like a customer is to get in the habit of paying attention to and analyzing your own experiences as a customer. Whether you're in a restaurant, a dry cleaners, or a repair shop, make a mental note of the things that rub you the wrong way or that make you want to continue doing business there. The same holds true of your reaction to print ads, commercials, billboards, yellow pages ads, or sales pitches. What is it about some of the marketing messages you hear or see that motivate you to pick up the phone, get in your car, write a check, pull out your credit card, or choose one business over another? Give some thought to why you keep going back to the same coffee shop, chiropractor, mechanic, bank, or hair stylist. If you can figure out why they've earned your loyalty, that might shed some light on how you can improve your own company's ability to attract, acquire, and retain customers.
But before you can build on your strengths, you need to identify exactly what they are. You and just about everyone in your organization needs to know what your unique, distinctive customer advantages are and why customers are better off doing business with your company rather than your competitors. Stop and write down all the strong selling points that can be used in presentations, brochures, ads, business cards, sales letters, and web pages. Then figure out what changes, improvements, and enhancements need to be made to your service quality, your marketing strategy, and that list of advantages to make it more compelling.
Shift Your Focus to Improve Your Profitability
Now here comes the hard part! I'm no psychologist, but it seems like the biggest obstacle that business owners face in giving effective sales presentations and creating response-producing ads and letters is their own ego. Make one change in your attitude and you're almost sure to increase your sales closing ratio and your advertising response rate. The secret, which you and just about everyone else in business has heard of but may not have acted on, is to focus your marketing message on "benefits" rather than "features". In other words, customers are more strongly persuaded by knowing how a product is going to benefit them, rather than what it's made of. That doesn't mean you should leave out the descriptive features of your product or service; but, in most cases, the main thrust of your presentation or ad should be the benefits your customer will enjoy. More specifically, focus on your ability to solve their problem, make their lives easier, or help them feel happier, have more fun, be more confident, enjoy better health, or increase their family's safety. They may also be in the market for a product or service that makes them more financially secure, personally admired or loved, more attractive, prosperous, prestigious, comfortable, or pain free. People have dozens of fundamental needs and emotional triggers, and are motivated by everything from fear and greed to love and vanity. If possible, find out exactly what your prospects' "hot buttons" are, and then tailor your presentation, ad, or web page to those needs. If you can reach them at an emotional level or otherwise convince them that you can satisfy their needs or solve their problem better than the competition, then the probability of gaining their business and winning them over as a loyal client will increase tremendously. Do that consistently, and you'll have a winning formula for small business marketing success.
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