Showing posts with label Product Positioning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Product Positioning. Show all posts
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Learn the Secret of Marketing to the Affluent
You most likely have had this experience.
You go to a store or a trade show with the objective of purchasing something. You present yourself as a ready, willing, and able buyer.
You make it real clear that price was not the key concern yet the sales person was busy selling features and functions of the product and the product’s price. They made no attempt at presenting themselves as the go-to guy or gal.
What you most likely noticed in this type of exchange is that there is no differentiation of their offering; they focus on price.
The thing most marketers and sales people fail to get about affluent clients or customers is that they are, by and large, NOT interested in learning a lot of technical information about WHAT they are going to buy.
Do you know that a very significant percentage of the affluent population pulled themselves up by their bootstraps … they have gone from poor to rich.
Many came from stark or relative poverty, or other difficult circumstances, and are still very much governed by having been poor. They never disconnect emotionally from this past no matter how successful and wealthy they become.
As an example, Walt Disney was once driving from Disneyland to his home when he saw and stopped briefly to admire a particular new car in a showroom window.
While driving home from the showroom, he said aloud to himself “Gee, I wish I could afford one of those.”
It was a half hour later that it occurred to him … “Hey, I can afford that” … so he turned around and drove back to the dealership and bought himself that car.
This reveals a little something about the self-made affluent … while most have unrestricted spending power they are in reality, conflicted about money. They battle guilt, fear, anxiety, and abhor waste.
However, as an Internet Marketing entrepreneur, you may very well find your best customers or clients in the segment of the economy that is comprised of the affluent self-made business owners and entrepreneurs so it is a good idea to learn the secrets of marketing to the affluent.
The personality of the affluent is sharply drawn, with little ambiguity, so they can be the easiest of all to market a wide variety of goods and services to … however you need to understand their profile.
Their profile is comprised of three parts.
First, they are fiercely independent and will not take no for an answer.
Second, they are great admirers of the qualities that got them where they are and if they admire you, they will reward your with their business.
Third, they are searching for value as they define it. They know the value of a dollar and tend to pride themselves on being smart about money and getting good deals.
Examples of this profile include: Donald Trump who bought his oceanfront manor as a bargain during a foreclosure proceedings and recouped his investment by selling all the antiques, antique furniture, and art that came with it and replacing the items with reproductions; the late Sam Walton who drove old pickup trucks; and Warren Buffet who buys his suits off-the-rack, his winter coats in the summer, and brings his lunch to work in a brown paper bag.
What is key to know about selling to the affluent is that their buying behavior is driven by emotions, known as the E-factors and then justified, if necessary, after the fact with logic.
Several of the E-factors include insecurity, fear of being thought of as takers, pride, love, guilt, and greed.
You can profit significantly by giving serious though in how you present your products and services so they are in sync with these E-factors of the affluent.
Many business people have a hard time in terms of selling to affluent clients. They need to learn they only need to provide enough information about how a product works to satisfy a buyer’s curiosity and to reassure them that you are the most knowledgeable resource about the product they are interested in obtaining.
Most affluent buyers are not in the hunt for in-depth technical product knowledge; they are in search of the go-to guy who they can trust to make the best decisions and prescribe the best solutions for them.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the secret of Marketing to the Affluent. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires; they know their WHO.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, to stay focused, and to add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes Marketing to the Affluent.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Marketing to the Affluent.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent“ by Dan Kennedy of Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle (GKIC) as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Learn the Secrets of Automatic Influence for Your Internet Marketing Business
A key skill for Internet Marketers to master is the use of hypnotic writing, sometimes referred to as copywriting, in their marketing campaigns. This skill is necessary in order to get leads and customers to take the action you want them to take.
This post will present the study of compliance and understanding which psychological principles influence the tendency to comply with a request.
These principles are frequently referred to as weapons of influence.
It is important to know these principles as they are used by effective professionals who request you purchase something, you make a donation to something, or you vote for someone.
When used effectively, these principles have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people … it is a willingness to say yes without thinking first.
In this ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life, this particular form of unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.
It will be increasingly important for the society to understand the how and why of automatic influence.
Here is a brief example of the genius of Coca-Cola and their use of persuasion, influence, and selling.
For more than 100 years, Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s foremost practitioners of what they call “one-way storytelling.” You and I call that an advertisement.
Coke is looking around and realizing that the 30-second television ad won’t take them where they want to go next. So they are turning to the tool that is quickly becoming the most important strategy for smaller businesses and that is content marketing.
For anyone who still thinks that content marketing is some kind of fad, take a look at the thinking (and dollars) going into Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy, aimed at doubling worldwide consumption of Coke by the year 2020.
Here is a look at three strategies from the great and advertising mind of Coca-Cola.
1st – “Liquid and linked” is the phrase Coke’s marketing team is using to describe its developing content strategy. A giant company like Coca-Cola creates countless “stories” every year in the form of a mobile app one day, a viral video another, and a really good television ad the third day. These individual pieces of content are bound together just like the “glass” of Coke gives shape to the whole endeavor. There is a balance between control (keeping your content linked by a coherent idea) and chaos (allowing your content to be liquid and to wander around the Net being shared and even altered along the way).
2nd – The 70/20/10 content plan is a nice framework for a complex content marketing strategy. In this framework, 70% of the content is low-risk bread and butter content. It is less controversial, less risky, and takes less time to prepare. 20% of the content is more in-depth, takes more time and energy to create, and connects more deeply with a well-defined segment of your audience. It innovates off of what is working with your target market and audience. The final 10% is high-risk content. It is the brand new ideas, the wild, hair raising stuff that might work; of course it might also fail.
3rd – Content excellence is to avoid creating noise. Without excellence, the time you spend on content marketing will be entirely wasted. If you can’t create content that is very good, you need to either get better or you need to partner with someone who has the talent to create content that is worth your audience’s attention.
There you have three of Coca-Cola’s ideas about content marketing.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn about the strategy of Content Marketing. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, to stay focused, and to add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the strategy of Content Marketing.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Content Marketing.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion“ by Robert B. Cialdini as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
This post will present the study of compliance and understanding which psychological principles influence the tendency to comply with a request.
These principles are frequently referred to as weapons of influence.
It is important to know these principles as they are used by effective professionals who request you purchase something, you make a donation to something, or you vote for someone.
When used effectively, these principles have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people … it is a willingness to say yes without thinking first.
In this ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life, this particular form of unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.
It will be increasingly important for the society to understand the how and why of automatic influence.
Here is a brief example of the genius of Coca-Cola and their use of persuasion, influence, and selling.
For more than 100 years, Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s foremost practitioners of what they call “one-way storytelling.” You and I call that an advertisement.
Coke is looking around and realizing that the 30-second television ad won’t take them where they want to go next. So they are turning to the tool that is quickly becoming the most important strategy for smaller businesses and that is content marketing.
For anyone who still thinks that content marketing is some kind of fad, take a look at the thinking (and dollars) going into Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy, aimed at doubling worldwide consumption of Coke by the year 2020.
Here is a look at three strategies from the great and advertising mind of Coca-Cola.
1st – “Liquid and linked” is the phrase Coke’s marketing team is using to describe its developing content strategy. A giant company like Coca-Cola creates countless “stories” every year in the form of a mobile app one day, a viral video another, and a really good television ad the third day. These individual pieces of content are bound together just like the “glass” of Coke gives shape to the whole endeavor. There is a balance between control (keeping your content linked by a coherent idea) and chaos (allowing your content to be liquid and to wander around the Net being shared and even altered along the way).
2nd – The 70/20/10 content plan is a nice framework for a complex content marketing strategy. In this framework, 70% of the content is low-risk bread and butter content. It is less controversial, less risky, and takes less time to prepare. 20% of the content is more in-depth, takes more time and energy to create, and connects more deeply with a well-defined segment of your audience. It innovates off of what is working with your target market and audience. The final 10% is high-risk content. It is the brand new ideas, the wild, hair raising stuff that might work; of course it might also fail.
3rd – Content excellence is to avoid creating noise. Without excellence, the time you spend on content marketing will be entirely wasted. If you can’t create content that is very good, you need to either get better or you need to partner with someone who has the talent to create content that is worth your audience’s attention.
There you have three of Coca-Cola’s ideas about content marketing.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn about the strategy of Content Marketing. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, to stay focused, and to add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the strategy of Content Marketing.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Content Marketing.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion“ by Robert B. Cialdini as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Learn How to Use the Place Strategy that Supports Premium Prices
America divides into niches and subcultures.
Each individual belongs to at least one of each but most belong to several of each.
Understanding how that niche or subculture membership and affinity, stretches the price elasticity of just about all goods and services, can put a great deal of lost money into your bank account.
Simplistically, niches are occupational and vocational; subcultures are by interest, belief, and activity. For example, insurance salespeople are a niche and deer hunters a subculture.
By further subdividing niches and subcultures, you get life insurance salespeople, property and casualty insurance salespeople, and specialized property and casualty; you can even find a niche of insurers for collector cars and rare art works.
In the subculture space, you can find deer hunters who use only bow and arrow and deer hunters who only hunt in the Midwest.
Most people have very strong identification with, and affinity to, whatever niches, sub-niches, and subcultures to which they think they belong to and they tend to buy a lot of things somehow linked to those niches and subcultures.
The deeper the commitment to niche or subculture, the less price matters for the precisely matched product. More price elasticity exists when moving a generic product to the niche.
Several key links about product / place / pricing must be cut. One link that must be cut is the value, in your mind, of the ingredients that comprise the product. Another link that must be cut is that some product comprised of the exact same ingredients may be readily available at a substantially different price, at a different place. Cutting this link is essential.
Place in this context is not necessarily a geographic place but a niche or subculture.
Again, price pressure goes up, if you can move a product from generic or mainstream, to niche or subculture. This why we add value to a generic product; it makes it customized or match a specific niche or subculture or client or customer.
Here are several key lessons to follow in order keep from being stupid with your Place Strategy. You must learn to make your sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling at dirt-cheap, forced-down prices with nominal or commodity like profits.
Lesson 1 – Avoid loading the wagon and then wonder who might buy what you have to offer.
Lesson 2 – Avoid one product, one size fits all approach. Modify, reposition, repackage what you have for different markets or different segments.
Lesson 3 – Avoid treating all places (such as media) the same. While there is undoubtedly some cross-over between The Robb Report, New Yorker, and Town & Country, do not put the same generic add in all 3 magazines and expect stellar results; it will not happen.
Lesson 4 – Do not miss out on “unique” place opportunities. Nationally, or locally; offline or online, there are lots of unique place and media opportunities. Find and decide on these first; then work backwards to modify or engineer a version of your product or service for that place.
Lesson 5 – The riches are in the niches so don’t insist on one, simple business instead of a dozen small, market-matched vertical business under one umbrella. Some want to push out their generic offer to everybody and anybody instead of modifying and customizing their offering into a dozen niche markets because it is too much work; avoid this stupid thinking.
Lesson 6 – Almost everybody works harder than necessary for each dollar they make than selling in a place that limits price rather than a place that liberates it. For example, a John Wayne figurine sells in a lot of places for $15, $20, maybe $25 however in Cowboys & Indians Magazine, it can sell for $135 because people looking for cowboy stuff know they can go to this place, find what they are looking for, and don’t need to look all over, even if the price is less expensive. As an enticement, the seller might even add a simple ebook with a bio and list of John Wayne movies as a way of creating a simple John Wayne package, justifying the higher price in the mind of the buyer and differentiating themselves from those just selling the figurine. In this example, go where buyers of cowboy stuff go.
Lesson 7 –There is an app that lets you wave your phone over any item’s bar code in any store and instantly get prices on that item from Amazon and other e-commerce discounters. Avoid selling something easily commoditized and price compared in a place where such comparison is easy as that spells DOOM. If you insist on creating interest, offline, for item “x” in a new prospect’s mind, and then drive that prospect online, you are a market maker for six billion competitors and you are asking to be Google slapped. Learn to make sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling dirt-cheap, forced-down prices and nominal profits.
If you follow these 7 lessons, you are able to get price out of the mind of a buyer of the products and services of your business. If you do not follow them, you will always be in a position where price is always an issue in the mind of the buyer and you will likely be challenged and always be suppressed by competition and commoditization.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Place Strategy. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Place Strategy.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Place Strategy.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "No B.S. Price Strategy“ by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Since this is the first post on this blog for the year, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Each individual belongs to at least one of each but most belong to several of each.
Understanding how that niche or subculture membership and affinity, stretches the price elasticity of just about all goods and services, can put a great deal of lost money into your bank account.
Simplistically, niches are occupational and vocational; subcultures are by interest, belief, and activity. For example, insurance salespeople are a niche and deer hunters a subculture.
By further subdividing niches and subcultures, you get life insurance salespeople, property and casualty insurance salespeople, and specialized property and casualty; you can even find a niche of insurers for collector cars and rare art works.
In the subculture space, you can find deer hunters who use only bow and arrow and deer hunters who only hunt in the Midwest.
Most people have very strong identification with, and affinity to, whatever niches, sub-niches, and subcultures to which they think they belong to and they tend to buy a lot of things somehow linked to those niches and subcultures.
The deeper the commitment to niche or subculture, the less price matters for the precisely matched product. More price elasticity exists when moving a generic product to the niche.
Several key links about product / place / pricing must be cut. One link that must be cut is the value, in your mind, of the ingredients that comprise the product. Another link that must be cut is that some product comprised of the exact same ingredients may be readily available at a substantially different price, at a different place. Cutting this link is essential.
Place in this context is not necessarily a geographic place but a niche or subculture.
Again, price pressure goes up, if you can move a product from generic or mainstream, to niche or subculture. This why we add value to a generic product; it makes it customized or match a specific niche or subculture or client or customer.
Here are several key lessons to follow in order keep from being stupid with your Place Strategy. You must learn to make your sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling at dirt-cheap, forced-down prices with nominal or commodity like profits.
Lesson 1 – Avoid loading the wagon and then wonder who might buy what you have to offer.
Lesson 2 – Avoid one product, one size fits all approach. Modify, reposition, repackage what you have for different markets or different segments.
Lesson 3 – Avoid treating all places (such as media) the same. While there is undoubtedly some cross-over between The Robb Report, New Yorker, and Town & Country, do not put the same generic add in all 3 magazines and expect stellar results; it will not happen.
Lesson 4 – Do not miss out on “unique” place opportunities. Nationally, or locally; offline or online, there are lots of unique place and media opportunities. Find and decide on these first; then work backwards to modify or engineer a version of your product or service for that place.
Lesson 5 – The riches are in the niches so don’t insist on one, simple business instead of a dozen small, market-matched vertical business under one umbrella. Some want to push out their generic offer to everybody and anybody instead of modifying and customizing their offering into a dozen niche markets because it is too much work; avoid this stupid thinking.
Lesson 6 – Almost everybody works harder than necessary for each dollar they make than selling in a place that limits price rather than a place that liberates it. For example, a John Wayne figurine sells in a lot of places for $15, $20, maybe $25 however in Cowboys & Indians Magazine, it can sell for $135 because people looking for cowboy stuff know they can go to this place, find what they are looking for, and don’t need to look all over, even if the price is less expensive. As an enticement, the seller might even add a simple ebook with a bio and list of John Wayne movies as a way of creating a simple John Wayne package, justifying the higher price in the mind of the buyer and differentiating themselves from those just selling the figurine. In this example, go where buyers of cowboy stuff go.
Lesson 7 –There is an app that lets you wave your phone over any item’s bar code in any store and instantly get prices on that item from Amazon and other e-commerce discounters. Avoid selling something easily commoditized and price compared in a place where such comparison is easy as that spells DOOM. If you insist on creating interest, offline, for item “x” in a new prospect’s mind, and then drive that prospect online, you are a market maker for six billion competitors and you are asking to be Google slapped. Learn to make sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling dirt-cheap, forced-down prices and nominal profits.
If you follow these 7 lessons, you are able to get price out of the mind of a buyer of the products and services of your business. If you do not follow them, you will always be in a position where price is always an issue in the mind of the buyer and you will likely be challenged and always be suppressed by competition and commoditization.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Place Strategy. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Place Strategy.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Place Strategy.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "No B.S. Price Strategy“ by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Since this is the first post on this blog for the year, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
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