I’m going to let you in on a not so secret secret.
Please Don’t Tell Anyone
Marketing is communication. Communication is easy. Marketing is easy.
Communication is easy? Yes. Although communication can be a challenge, especially if your audience isn’t listening, if you say what you mean, and mean what you say, communication actually is very easy. (Those are two different things according to the Mad Hatter! ‘Why you might just as soon say you see what you eat as you eat what you see!’ Food for thought, that.)
Now, what you communicate is next. This is the not so secret secret . Communicating three simple things well, will make your web marketing easy. You need to effectively communicate:
- What You Offer
- Why Your Prospect Wants Your Offer
- How Your Prospect Gets Your Offer
How you do that is where all the tools at your disposal come into play, from web sites, to business cards, from print media to social media. And there are very specific ways to make this all easy.
You Just Got Your Marketing Degree
Easy. Right? Yes indeed. But here’s the funny part. Most of us fail miserably. We either omit this altogether, or fail to keep these things in mind while writing copy or creating other media. These three basic elements of marketing are often overlooked and not shared.
Simply state what they get, why they want it, and then how to get it. Make it easy. What do we bring to the party? Why would anyone want to party with us? How to party, what’s next? This is the essence of marketing. (The party metaphor is a recurring favorite of mine. Party! Have fun!)
But Wait, There’s More
Of course there must be more to marketing than that. Well, no, not really. But John Carlton describes the final challenge well, triggering the take action impetus in the last “how” step. He says something to the effect that “we then have to get them up off the couch to buy”. The couch is of course symbolic. and not everyone is on the couch, everyone is different. But the concept is sound. How do we move folks to move? How do we convince them it’s OK to take action? That they can give themselves permission to act and try your offering?
That’s the part of the “how” step, the call to action, that takes that little extra connection. Carlton also points out what we’ve all observed time and again, from elections to selections, that humans constantly act against their own best interests. From what I can see, this is usually either due to laziness (the couch metaphor) or fear. Fear of taking risks.
And so it goes in marketing, even when you have an absolute perfect fit. Folks are lazy, or afraid, and just want to kick back and not take risks in general. Buy that perfect solution to my problem? I’ll think about it. So you have to overcome those barriers to risk-taking and get your prospects excited about you. You have to connect. You have to build their trust. You have to remove risk.
Get Them Off The Couch!
So what motivates that last step? Causes pulling the pin on that purchase that will solve that problem? Helping them fill that need and desire? Excitement!! (Ah the pesky exclamation point. Don’t overdo lest you appear phony.) Believing. Don’t go for the fake scarcity rap, “act now or forever hold your peace!”. We all know it’s bogus. And many times, very off-putting. Be genuine. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Be yourself.
I Just Believe In Me, You And Me
Enthusiasm. Joy. Lust for life. Yours and theirs. Enthusiastically and genuinely share your enthusiasm about your offering and they’ll get enthusiastic and want a piece of the action, your action. This isn’t manipulation. This is sharing. This is helping. This is connecting. Making that connection with another human being with a need for your help. If you believe, they will believe. This is the differentiation of your offer. You truly believe in your offering. You truly care about your customer or client. You truly want to help them. And they can feel you.
Having Fun Yet?
So this is the most fun of the “how” part, motivating your customers, existing and future, to get up off the couch and take the next step in experiencing the value of your product. Falling in love with your customers, and your customers falling in love with you. Getting them off the couch is easy by having fun, generating excitement, and sharing your absolute enthusiasm for your product or service. Show your prospects how much you love your offer, you love them, and you want to help them, and they’ll love you and your product too. Fun and excitement is infectious.
So Make It Easy
If you do these three things really, really, ridiculously well (damn you Zoolander!), communicating with the right people, marketing is easy. Web marketing is easy.
Marketing is fun. The whole stigma of marketing comes from a long history of con jobs. But marketing isn’t a con. Au contraire. Knowing your audience, finding that audience, keeping customers, reaching out to new customers, bringing back customers, making irresistible offers, all comes down to human beings communicating. And having fun doing it.
As easy as one, two, three. No joke. HAVE FUN! (Thanks Max. I miss you.)