So I’ve been getting a few emails and messages lately from people who are frustrated with their lack of results and progress so far in working with clients, after asking a few questions, I found a common trend amongst most of the people, which is the basis of this post!
I sent out an email a couple days ago to those on my mailing list mentioning this, but I might expand into it further (other elements of it) depending on the feedback this one receives etc.
So let’s get started!
What is Marketing?
Lots of different schools of thought on this one, but I’ll stick with the basic one I learned from a Dan Kennedy seminar way back in the day:
Marketing is identifying your target market’s problems and informing them of the solution you have to solve those problems.
i.e. Your market suffers from bad headaches, so you let them know you have a pill that relieves even the WORST headaches FAST
i.e. Your market is always skipping breakfast because they never have time to eat in the morning, so you provide them with a meal to eat ON THE GO that has all the essential nutrients of a recommended breakfast amount
etc.
Okay so that covers the background basics of what marketing is all about, but what does it have to do with people not getting a response to their messages?
Well a lot of you are doing a great job of stating what you will DO for the prospects you contact (slash marketing, increase profits, find leaks etc.), but unfortunately that is what you leave it at!
You stating what you will/can do is NOT necessarily going to make every person read your emails/letters/reports and leap to the phone to contact you!
Okay, so what do you need to do?
You need to make sure that EVERY MARKETING MESSAGE you have answers the following three questions:
1) Why should -> I <- read/listen any further?
2) How will this help my CURRENT situation?
3) Why should I do this NOW and NOT LATER?
(This applies to your client’s marketing messages as well)
So if we want to be detailed, let’s start with #1…
You have 3 – 5 seconds before someone either stops your video, clicks out of your email, or tosses your letter. Within those 3 – 5 seconds thay need to know that what you are talking about APPLIES TO THEM and will BENEFIT THEM to keep reading.
Headline: “If you are constantly feeling tired, have no energy to study, and are struggling to stay awake in class, then we’d like to give you a free sample of our incredible new energy drink PROVEN to take you from exhausted to energetic in less than 5 minutes and increase reading retention rate!”
Now the person reading that will know that you are either speaking directly to THEIR needs and whether THEY are interested in reading more. If you just write a generic message that could to be written to ANYONE, then you lose the interest of EVERYBODY, your message needs to come across as if it was meant exactly for the person you wrote it for…
…this which is why YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR MARKET’S CURRENT SITUATION!
Okay so now you have got them MILDLY interested to SKIM the rest of what you have to say, time for #2…
The 2nd part of your message needs to educate and/or relate to what the SITUATION OF YOUR MARKET is.
i.e You are explaining how crime trends are increasing, and home owners in the XYZ part of the City, who have ABC features for their homes, are being targeted 13% more than those who don’t have those features, however by using your Solution X, chance of becoming victim not only decreases by 38% but insurance costs also decrease by 15% etc. (backed up with SOCIAL PROOF via client testimonials, case studies, etc.)
Remember back to the start of this post?
Marketing is identifying your target market’s problems and informing them of the solution you have to solve those problems.
The reality is that people don’t know what they don’t know, so before you can get clients excited about your solution, you need to educate them that they even have a problem that needs solving!
Most people we talk with have no idea that what they are doing is not as effective as it could be, is costing them more then it needs to, or could be skipped all together with a better solution…
That’s where you come in.
You need to educate and inform them on the problem they have, and why YOU are the one to help them solve it.
So for example as an offline consultant you would:
- Relate to talking with local business owners who are frustrated with their current business situation as sales aren’t what they used to be and marketing just isn’t working.
- Educate your prospect on the growing trend of customers going online to research before purchasing, and how they are using the search engines to find solutions to their needs
- Provide Proof that you know what you are talking about and should be listened to. This can be in the form of a testimonial, personal results, or even a news article / media quote that states the information source you gathered it from (i.e. 80% of Consumers perform a search on Google before go in store to make a purchase -XYZ News Company) etc.
Finally #3 on the list…
A lot of the messages I am getting from frustrated members of the forum mostly lack one key thing (above all the above) and that is a “NO-BRAINER” OFFER!
When I ask people “okay, so you aren’t getting any responses back, but what are you offering as an incentive?” I keep getting back a lot of Unique Selling Proposition statements.
To clarify:
A USP is why the prospect should CHOOSE YOU vs the competition that is providing the SAME solution, a USP is NOT an OFFER.
An offer is:
- A free report
- Free videos
- Free webinar / teleseminar
- Coupons
- A product of real value
- etc.
An OFFER is essentially a BRIBE for your prospect to contact you, however an offer by itself is not that great, what it needs to have is a DEADLINE. This mean you need to say “Contact me within # days if you want this offer, otherwise the offer will BE GONE.”
Now here is the KEY to your message (and getting a response) you must make an offer that is SO IRRESISTABLY GOOD that whomever you made the offer to will STOP WHAT THEY ARE DOING and CONTACT YOU ASAP.
“Hey Mr. Business owner, just wanted to contact you about a free report I created on how to get your business more customers, you can download it at www.mysite.com”
Hrmmm, could work…might get some people who HAVE THE TIME to read a “free report,” but most people will be “too busy” to care, and your offer will drift into the trash can.
Or how about this “classic” offer:
“Hey Mr. Business owner, I help businesses get 1st page rankings on Google, I usually charge $497 for this, but for YOU I will give a FREE CONSULTATION!!”
Unfortunately the term “free consultation” (to me at least) is so over done, and common, that the phrase itself is a turn off. I mean we all know “free consultation” is code for “give me a chance to meet you and hopefully make money off of you.”
So what is left you ask?
************************************************** ***
Make an offer that gets your prospect RESULTS NOW for their problems!
************************************************** ***
What do I mean?
The offer of a “free report” or a “free consultation” does not answer really put money in the business owner’s pocket IMMEDIATELY, more of a “nice to have.”
Unfortunately, “nice to have” isn’t worth spending time on when you are business running a business…as such when the business owner gets your “offer” they don’t really care if they miss out on it.
REMEMBER: Humans by nature make decisions based on two things – Gaining of Pleasure and Avoidance of Pain
Your offer MUST show an IMMEDIATE GAIN or REDUCTION OF PAIN.
What if you offered to get a business owner, that had NO online presence, a first page placement on Google through a local business listing (free to create)?
This has REAL value to the business owner that they could SEE RESULTS from immediately (i.e. they search their name and appear on Google)
Perhaps its a Twitter channel (loaded with auto-generated tweets) or a FaceBook fan page etc.
You now place a value of $497 on these things, but also talk about the INCREASE FREE EXPOSURE for the business owner! (at no risk and at no cost to them at all)
Then you need to let them know WHY you are making such an “incredible offer” to them, at which point all you need to mention is that you would require them to contact you so you can meet for 30 minutes or so to analyse the best way to promote the business to the market.
(I’m going to be testing our some new offers / strategies myself soon via direct mailings and will update you all with results)
So there ya have it!
If you’d like to receive complete training how to not only easily generate more clients, but have them excited to hire you AND send you a ton of referrals, then check out The Consulting Success Map training course!
Tags: clients, direct, leads, letters, mail, marketing, response
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