The Key Tools of Marketing and the Weapons of Influence

Before you can have your ultimate, fine-tuned business, you must turbo-charge every aspect. Use the 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence to get peak performance out of your business.

This post will identify and briefly explain each of the 7 Key Tools of Marketing. It is important to understand that once the mechanics of setting up and operating these 7 Key Tools is performed, it is the message that will influence the reader to take the action you want them to take. There are 6 Key Weapons of Influence and this post will briefly introduce them. It is the combination of the mechanics of marketing, or the 7 Key Tools of Marketing, and the message principles, or the Weapons of Influence, that enable your business to be successful!

Here are the 7 Key Tools of Marketing.

Tool 1. Advertising. If you have the budget for it, advertising has the broadest reach and creates the most top-of-mind awareness. Here is what you must do to create high response-generating advertising. Be distinctive. Capture attention with a screaming headline. After your headline hooks them, the copy or the message in the body of your ad has to keep them reading. Be sure to include a Call to Action.

Tool 2. Direct Mail. A successful direct mail campaign depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are. First, use color as much as you can. Second, put messages on the envelopes. Third, think about the way you sort your own mail to increase the chances of the envelope being opened. In conclusion, use direct mail as a weapon for attacking your dream prospects.

Tool 3. Corporate Literature. Consider corporate literature to be like your direct mail pieces. Your brochures must draw from your education-based marketing efforts and should be a miniature version of your pitch or core story. It must have riveting data however remember that facts tell but stories sell. Use the same graphics that you use in your presentations, advertisements, and direct mail pieces to enhance cohesion of your marketing efforts.

Tool 4. Public Relations. If you throw splashy events such as trade show parties and benefits for your clients, you are doing PR work. PR also includes press releases, building relationships with the press to get articles written about you, and affiliating with strong forces that can help you such as trade associations and community groups. Most companies do not have a cohesive, highly effective public relations effort, yet it can work miracles for building your fame, even if you are a small company, especially with the reach and pervasiveness of the Internet.

Tool 5. Personal Contact. Personal contact is the most potent form of marketing so do it often and have quality conversations with your prospects.

Tool 6. Trade Shows and Market Education. Trade shows are a great way to provide product and market related information to your prospects. When done properly, it can take you from obscurity to the top of the market in a single event. If not done properly, it can be a big waste of money. Follow these three rules to have a great trade show. 1. Get noticed. 2. Drive traffic. 3. Capture leads.

Tool 7. Internet. The Internet can create an awesome opportunity for your business or it can become your worst nightmare overnight if some competitor learns how to utilize it better than you. As an example, Amazon struggled in its early years but it still took $1B in market share from other booksellers. Because Amazon grew with the Internet, it reached the $1B in sales in four years. Prior to the Internet, other bookstore chains took 50 years to reach $1B in sales. Here are the five key activities to perform on the Internet. 1. Capture leads. 2. Build a relationship. 3. Interact as much as possible. 4. Offer a webinar. 5. Convert traffic to sales.

It is important for all these key tools of marketing to work together. Your content and your message should be, of course, consistent and all the duplicated, or syndicated, content be cross-referenced in some manner.

Here are some important questions to ask as a way to ensure the key tools of marketing are effective. Are all your articles on your website? Are they available as downloads? Are they available to site visitors so they can be shared and or mailed to others by your site visitors? Does your content generate leads for your business? Do you offer free education as a way of building your leads list?

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is important that the weapons of influence (contained in your content, your pitch, your storyboard) are used to get your prospects to take the action you want them to take.

To help you understand the power of the weapons of influence, do you feel as if you are an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers or fund-raisers? Do you find yourself in possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to various charity events? Why is it that a request stated in a certain way, is rejected while a request asking for the same favor in a slightly different way will be successful? The key is the psychology of persuasion, sometimes referred to as the weapons of influence.

Here are the 6 Weapons of Influence that need to be considered when preparing your message.

Weapon 1. Reciprocity. This rule is the old give and take and says that we should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us.

Weapon 2. Commitment and Consistency. Like other weapons of influence, this rule is quite simply our desire to be, and to appear to be, consistent with what we have already done. As an example, if we buy a small item, we are frequently asked if we would like to supersize it, or buy another item for 50% (as an example) more; all presented to us at the same time. This is part of the up-sell process.

Weapon 3. Social Proof. This rule states that we determine what is correct when we find out what other people think is correct. Said another way, we think we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. This is why testimonials are so popular for a product; they make us think that if all the people in the testimonials like or are using the product, how could we be wrong for also using it.

Weapon 4. Liking. This rule is based on the fact the most of us would prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like. As trivial as it may seem, prospects are more likely to purchase from a sales person if the sales person were similar to the prospect in terms of age, sex, religion, politics, and several other factors such as recreation, and even career, activities.

Weapon 5. Authority. We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and that disobedience is wrong. This message is carried forward in the legal, medical, military, and political systems we encounter as adults. Advertisers frequently harness the respect and influence accorded to doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the role of a doctor and speak in a positive way about a product. The message from the doctor, an authority figure, can sway or influence prospects to purchase the product.

Weapon 6. Scarcity. The appeal for something of interest increases when we learn that it will soon become unavailable. This is based on the rule of scarcity. There is a secondary source of power, or influence, with the scarcity principle. As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms and we hate to lose freedoms we already have. Whenever free choice is limited, due to the scarcity of something, the need to retain our freedom makes us desire them significantly more than we did previously.

By understanding and using these weapons, you have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people that have a willingness to say yes without thinking first.

With the ever-accelerating pace and information crush of modern life, this form of hypnotic writing that generates unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.

As a result, it will be important to understand the how and why of automatic persuasion using the weapons of influence.

The 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence are being used by The New Professionals as a driving force for their success with their home-based businesses. As The New Professionals are becoming The Next Millionaires, this makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing for many seeking a career change.

Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.

This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.

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.

Finally, a great book to read is "Influence" by Robert B Cialdini as it explains The Psychology of Persuasion.

In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about Being No 1 on Google, 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!