Attraction Marketing Defined

June 16, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing Tools · 13 Comments 

Attraction Marketing is simply turning the traditional “sales” model on its head. In traditional “sales” the seller chases after the buyer and tries to coerce the buyer to buy. There isn’t any concern on the part of the seller for the buyer’s goals, desires or problems. In “conventional” marketing, the buyer’s role is to buy and the seller’s role is to sell. PERIOD. End of sentence. Seller chases buyer and tries to “sell” whatever it is the seller is selling.

However, in attraction marketing, this process is turned upside down. Buyers come to sellers seeking ways to achieve GOALS… seeking ways to satisfy DESIRES and most importantly, seeking solutions to PROBLEMS.

When you focus on buyers GDP (Goals, Desires, Problems) then your marketing doesn’t have to push, push push. Instead, your marketing can pull or attract buyers. Buyers are coming to YOU instead of you chasing buyers.

Attraction Marketing isn’t for everyone. If you’re an “old school” salesman whose focus is exclusively on closing the present sale without any thought to building a customer RELATIONSHIP where that customer returns time and time again, then perhaps attraction marketing is not for you.

If however, you want to create a relationship with your customers so they come and buy from you time and time again, then Attraction Marketing is where you should invest your marketing efforts.

The book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results is all about creating attraction marketing campaigns for your small business.

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The Essential Marketing Secrets that Amazon Forgot

March 30, 2008 · Filed Under Branding, Branding Boo Boos · 17 Comments 

Amazon has made a SERIOUS mistake in the way they conduct business and may be the mother of all Branding Boo Boos!
First, you need to understand a term to understand the gravity of the situation for Amazon.

POD stands for Print On Demand. Instead of printing thousands of copies of a book and hoping they sell, these publishers can print only the number of books that actually are sold. That’s a great business model, however Amazon has decided that the only POD books they want to sell on their site are the ones printed by their own POD service: Book Surge.

Angela Hoy is the publisher of the Writer’s Weekly which she uses to promote her POD publishing business, Booklocker.com. Last Friday, Angela launched a firestorm when she reported that Amazon is putting the squeeze on POD publishers.

FIRST MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: Customers are the life blood of any business.

Angela Hoy reports spending over $1500 with Amazon last year. Sure, that’s just a tiny drop of income in the Olympic sized pool of profits generated by Amazon… but she’s a customer none the less and their bullying tactics really rubbed her the wrong way. They’ve lost her as a customer… but wait … that brings us to Marketing Secret Number 2.

SECOND MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: A satisfied customer will tell 3 friends… a dissatisfied customer will tell 16.

In Angela’s case, she’s the editor of the largest ezine publication for freelance writers in the world, so instead of telling 16 friends she’s using her newsletter to tell over a hundred thousand. She’s ignited quite a firestorm.

THIRD MARKETING SECRET THAT AMAZON FORGOT: People hate doing business with a bully.

Apple’s agency recognized this secret when they created those memorable Mac vs PC spots. The Ladders.com also capitalized upon this marketing secret as well. Not only are these strong arm tactics not going to play well with POD authors… they’re not going to play well for MANY “regular” book buyers as well.

The firestorm ignited by this illustrates an important truth about the power of Web 2.0. While we are all seeking a way to ignite a firestorm like this to build POSITIVE buzz about a business… it seems that human nature tends to reserve such passionate “pass along” power to injustice that incites rage and indignation. It’s unfortunate, but the positive afterglow of a positive customer experience rarely inspires such a viral campaign.

Less than 48 hours after the newsletter went out, there were more than 60 online references to this story. Slashdot picked it up, so that number will increase.

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I’ve included a list of sites reporting this story. Feel free to grab the list below and add it to your own blog. If you want to add your post to the “cause”… the post a comment to this post. The more links to these posts… the more “traction” this cause will get.

Amazon began by providing a superior book buying experience to their customers.  Buying a book from Amazon is BETTER than buying a book in a physical book store because a reader can access other reader reviews and read excerpts online.  Amazon is about to discover that hell hath no fury like a customer scorned.

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Stop Marketing, Stop Selling and Start Connecting

March 20, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · 5 Comments 

Over at License to Roam, Rachel Clarke reports in her post Self-replicating Awesomeness at SXSW the following exchange:

Deborah Schultz, Chris Heuer, David Parmet

  • DP: Brian Oberkirch put this together - he asked 2 questions. How to market into community without being too marketer like. And how do you build a community around what you are doing? What does ‘no marketing’ look like? How can we use social media?
  • DS: None of this is about tools or technology, but is about the customers. Here to talk about some of the subtleties, not about the tactics. It’s about marketing, customer service, product development. the marketing silo needs to be changed, why are they afraid of the opps. This is not telling or selling, this is being in the trenches.
  • CH: what is really bugging me right now is the number of people who are saying to me ‘build me a community’ but this does make a community, it is the interpersonal connections that make it. Social media is not new media, it changes how we relate to each other. You have to shift the way you think about participation. have to change mindset from stop trying to sell me to help make me buy.

stop trying to sell me to help make me buy

I’d rework that final phrase to…

stop trying to sell me and instead help me solve my problem/fill my want/ meet my need

Fifty years ago selling was push, push, push. Over the past half century the tide has turned and now selling is more of a pull, pull, pull.

Stop Marketing, Stop Selling and Start Connecting

The ENTIRE focus of my first book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results is to help the reader get out of his/her own head and into the head of his/her customers!!! To use the language above…jumping INTO THE TRENCHES and getting down and dirty connecting with your target customers.

When your focus is upon solving your customers problems…. when your focus is upon providing something they want…. when your product or service meets their need… you discover that marketing is merely presenting your solution… your answer to the people who not only want to hear it, but are EAGER to learn more.

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Holy Grail of Marketing: Creating Viral Marketing Campaigns

March 17, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing, Visitor Attraction · 2 Comments 

Social Networking is all the buzz these days.  Big corporations and small business owners are wading in and trying to leverage social networking sites to create viral marketing campaigns.  Many mistakenly view “viral marketing” as merely another form of word of mouth advertising.

Seth Godin writes in “Is Viral Marketing the Same as Word of Mouth“:

Viral marketing [does not equal] word of mouth. Here’s why:

Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a consumer tells five or ten friends. And that’s it. It amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. A lousy flight on United Airlines is word of mouth. A great meal at Momofuku is word of mouth.

Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population. The marketer doesn’t have to actually do anything else. (They can help by making it easier for the word to spread, but in the classic examples, the marketer is out of the loop.)

So it’s easy to see why a viral marketing campaign would be the holy grail for most marketing professionals or business owners.  Imagine… creating an ad campaign that you don’t have to pay to have delivered…instead it’s carried by your customers to their friends… and their friends carry the message to their friends.  All this is done without any promise of renumeration.

Viral Marketing is indeed the pinnacle of marketing success…the problem is that most attempts at launching “viral marketing campaigns” land FLAT!  For every successful one launched, there are hundreds that fail to engage and deliver.

In 7 tricks to Viral Web Marketing Thomas Baekdal writes for tip #3:

Do not try to make advertisements (that sucks)

One of the biggest mistake companies make is when they think viral marketing is just advertisements that people share - it is not. Traditional marketing is about promoting your product, showing how good it is, giving it center stage - and generally being incredibly selfish (and possibly using supermodels or movie stars). But guess what, nobody cares about you!

Viral marketing is all about a good story. When BMW put out BMW Films, the main ingredient was not the cars, but the story. Replace the car with another one, and it would still be great. When Sony made their Bravia TV ads, the product was not even seen - yet everyone remembers it.

So, in true paradoxical fashion… setting out to create a “viral” marketing campaign is the wrong approach.  Instead, seek to engage and interact with your customer.  CONNECT!!!!

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The Value of Free in Business Marketing

March 11, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · 4 Comments 

About five years ago, I “shut off” my main business web site (before it was a blog) Virtual Impax to the search engines. It was a conscious and deliberate decision. I hid my web site’s navigation bar inside a javascript and did not include an XML site map.

Why in the world would I do such a thing? Because at the time, the 2nd most popular search term after “web development” was “FREE web development”. My practice was busy and growing based upon client referrals and it got to the point where I really didn’t want to deal with the “gimme something for nuttin” crowd.

As a group, these people were a huge drain on my time and energy and they gave little back. The “freebie seekers” I encountered were relentless in their pursuit of obtaining free information and services. They wanted only the best and were an exaggerated case of “champagne taste on a water from the nearest stream” budget.

One thing I’ve noticed in my practice is that every time I raised my rates, the number of “problem” clients dropped dramatically. Fortunately, they were quickly replaced by a “higher quality” client. Betsy Talbot of the Small Business blog noticed a similar phenomenon:

When I stopped having all those free coffee dates my income went up and my interactions were more meaningful.

The Wordpress Pad seems to weigh in on the side of “anti-free”….. in The Value of “Free” on the Web:

The most natural thing as a consumer is to assume that pricey things are worth more than cheap things. This may not always be the case, but we’ve been trained well enough to believe it despite evidence to the contrary in some cases. Regardless, you shouldn’t expect to get a good website for free, just a cheap one.

Free web sites aside, is there value in offering “free” products and services in the name of marketing? Debbie Weil thinks there is. She heralds Tom Peter’s freely distributed promotional materials on his blog as a brilliant marketing move, calling it “cost-free viral marketing”.

I think this is truly a case of where the “brand” or “reputation” of the person or company offering the “freebie”.

In Seth Godin’s post The Thing About Free Godin says:

“When I do a non profit seminar (they’re always free), the number of people who say, “yes I’m coming” and the number of people who come is not the same. So, if I have room for ten, do I do a seminar for eight, or do I book 12 seats and play airline seat manager for the day?”

While Seth Godin’s “show up for free” ratio appears to be roughly 80%, I have clients who are not on “par” with Seth Godin’s or Tom Peter’s stature who consider themselves lucky to get 20% of “free” participants to show up for a seminar.

Bob Warfield writes in his post Does Free Really have Value?

“I’m concerned that free has become undifferentiated and that it now has a lot less value than we think. It is the last refuge when you’ve no idea whether you have a good idea or can sell it, so you loudly proclaim it’s free and wait for the huddled masses to assemble at your doorstep. Except, it’s not enough any more.”

It appears free just isn’t what it used to be in the age of Web 2.0, at least for the “little guy or gal”. The Blog Herald’s “free” marketing experiment yielded similar results. David Peralty writes in The Value of Free Information

“[my free video experiment]… really showed me that the community doesn’t really respect free things. I then added the video option to one of my paid consulting pages, and have had more requests for it since then, than I ever had when it was a free thing I was trying. As soon as I put a monetary value on my time and effort, people started to respect the offering much more.”

It appears there are two types of “free” resources.  Those your visitors perceive as “worth while” and those your visitors perceive as “worth less”.  If you’re a best selling author, giving away freebies is seen as creating a cost free viral marketing campaign.  If you’re anything less.. then your freebie may be perceived as lacking value and a desperate attempt at attention.

What’s your experience with giving away things for free?

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Successful marketing and solving problems

February 22, 2008 · Filed Under Building Your Business, Marketing · 1 Comment 

The most successful marketing approach focuses upon solving problems. The more narrowly you define your target, the more specifically you can deal with the unique problems (and therefore, opportunities) of your target market. Once you have chosen a narrowly defined market, it is easier to discover the wants and needs members of that market are facing.

Climbing Blogging SuccessIt is an unpleasant fact that people have problems. Most buying decisions are a direct effort to alleviate discomfort. Start viewing your best clients as people who have problems that you can solve and you are well on your way to constructing a compelling marketing message.

Define your target market’s most pressing problems.

Grab a notebook and list each pressing problem which your target market is grappling with at the top of each page.

If you’re having problems identifying your target market’s problems, it may be time to develop composite customers to help you get a better idea of why your clients are buying from you. You can learn more about Creating Composite Customers in the book, Beyond the Niche.

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How Social Networking Sites can work AGAINST you….

February 7, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · Comment 

For Murad Ahmed, social networking sites are no longer “fun and games”…. they’re deadly serious. In his article, My online life: no hobbies, no opinions, no friends, no fun he chronicles what happens when your work colleagues find you on Facebook.

This is why my Facebook account is reserved for family, friends and college connections.  On the other hand, my LinkedIn account is used solely for business connections.   Even though I try to keep these two social networking site “separate”, there’s always the chance of a client discovering me on Facebook.  Then what will he think when he sees I’ve joined the “I hate Tom Brady” group?  Yes, there’s really a group like that and I have been invited, but haven’t joined for just this reason.

On the other hand, it’s hard to maintain a “professional” facade with a former college dorm mate who was there when I , after the consumption of COPIOUS amounts of hard liquor, decided to imitate Cathy Rigby by doing the splits.  The problem was, prior to that incident, I couldn’t DO the splits.  I wasn’t able to walk for two days and missed classes thanks to that drunken stunt.  How do I go about convincing her that I’m really a competent professional 20 years later?

That’s the problem when social networking circles collide!

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Let me make this easy for you…

January 25, 2008 · Filed Under Marketing · Comment 

People are busy.  You’re busy.  I’m busy… but most of all, your clients and customers are also busy.  So when you’re creating your marketing materials (web site, email, direct mail, radio, television, newspaper, etc.) it’s important to keep in mind that you must make it as EASY as possible for them to purchase from you.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve watched as:

  • One client instructed web site visitors to “go to google and search for [insert name of book here] to buy my book.”
  • Another client’s purchasing instructions include “add to cart” buttons without ANY reference to how much the product costs!
  • A colleague who, when I was searching for him via Google, found his LinkedIn account and when I told him his web site didn’t come up in Google but his LinkedIn did, wrote back telling me where to find his name on his company web site… which didn’t come up on the first three pages of Google.

Time and time again, I’ve watched as business people make “excuses” for why they can’t be bothered to make it EASY for people to do business with them.

Here’s a test:  Ask your MOTHER to order your product or service from your web site.  (If your mother is web savvy… then ask your grandmother to do it.)  If she’s confused, chances are your customers will be too.

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Blogs are great Attraction Marketing tools

January 10, 2008 · Filed Under Blogs, Marketing Tools · Comment 

Attraction marketing is all about focusing upon creating customers instead of focusing upon creating sales.  On the surface it may sound like a "chicken and egg" kind of conundrum, but actually your choice of which end of the marketing spectrum you will direct your attention determines everything about your business.

If your focus is upon sales, you’ll create a different marketing message than if your focus is upon attracting customers.   If your business is engaged in making a major sale (read more about major and minor sales in my book,“Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results”) then it’s essential that you adopt an "attraction marketing" method of promoting your business.

When you’re searching for attraction marketing tools, nothing can compare with the power of a blog to promote your business (Again, I’m assuming you are making major sales). 

The thing is, when you’re using your blog as an attraction marketing tool, you can forget about becoming the biggest or worrying about growing your blog traffic.  Steve Rubel  writes on On the Devaluation of Traffic:

My Google Analytics account is my laboratory. And over the past year I have noticed a trend. Most of my traffic is from Google and they are largely passerbys. The same holds true for anyone who visits my site from Techmeme, Digg or even big blogs. A prominent mention in The Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago garnered me a whopping 40 visitors.

Ah… isn’t that what most businesses are looking for when it comes to web site traffic?  A casual passerby who has found them via a search on Google?  Then, the passerby will judge whether this business is a good "fit" for them… by reading a few posts and seeing what the author knows and how he/she communicates that knowledge.

Alexander Vanelsas writes in his post Newton’s Universal Law of Blog Attraction better than a Techmeme leaderboard?

The narcissistic way of ranking (who has the biggest..) seems less valuable to me than being able to see which blogs attract me and I am attracted to. Newton’s universal law of gravitation, which calculates the attraction between two objects seems perfect to tweak into a blog attraction formula.

I love Alexander’s definition of the quest for a top blog spot: narcissistic!

Narcissism and attraction marketing do not mix well!

As a matter of fact, I’d go as far to say that narcissists are unable to make attraction marketing work.  They’re too focused upon themselves to be able to devote any attention to the wants/needs/desires of their potential customers.

I have a client who has been blogging for about 6 months.  His readership is EXTREMELY low… as in double digit figures.  He kept asking me for a log analysis and I kept stalling… because 28 visitors a month is not going to encourage him to keep blogging.  Here’s the great part… last Friday he got his first appointment from someone who identified himself as coming to my client because he was a blog reader.

Since my client is an EXCEPTIONAL practitioner of his craft AND is by no means narcissistic, I’m confident that his newest client will become a life long customer.  After all, my client’s customer retention rate is incredibly high.  However, the best news for my client is that he not only has one more client on his rolls, he also has another "missionary" so to speak.  Someone else who will spread the word about my client and encourage others to begin using my client’s services as well. 

That’s the power of blogging.  When you’re making a major sale, trust is a HUGE issue.  By blogging, you share yourself and begin building that trust long before and introduction is in order.

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Spam subject lines can help you to create a powerful headline

October 30, 2007 · Filed Under Marketing · 1 Comment 

If you’re like most, your spam filters don’t catch EVERY bit of spam and as a result, a hundred or two (a day) may land in your inbox.  If you ever bother to take a look at your spam messages, you’ll see that they have some very creative AND tightly targeted headlines in order to get you to read their spammy messages.

For example, I recently got a PDF attachment in an email with the subject line: Tax Statement.  This arrived…. SURPRISE, right around October 15th…. one of the dates the self employed must pay their estimated quarterly taxes.  Now, if you’re a W-2 wage slave, (as opposed to being an indentured servant  a.k.a. self employed) the timing and header of that email might not grab your attention as it did mine.  Fortunately, my CPA’s domain name address does NOT include the word "booty" in it, so I wasn’t even TEMPTED to open the PDF enclosure.

But it did get me thinking about headlines and how some spammers are VERY gifted at creating tightly targeted ones.  In the example above, they even DELIVERED the message at the "right" time to get the maximum number of rubes opening it.  Meanwhile, other spam headlines which speak of their product’s ability to increase the size of my male genitalia don’t get even a nano-second of my attention. 

The subject line of an email is just a headline by another name.  Some entice with "work from home"…. some use "tax statement" while others promise an enhancement of physical attributes or adult activities.  The next time you’re cleaning out your spam messages… make a mental note to see which subject lines catch YOUR attention.  Remember, whether it’s the subject line of an email or the title to a blog post, they key is to catch the attention of your target market so they’ll stop and read more.

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