What is top of mind awareness?  Probably one of THE most important things in business success.

Here’s what I mean.  Right now your brain is being bombarded with millions of bits of information.  From the music in the background (if applicable) to the clothes on your body (hopefully, applicable) to the fan from the computer the brain is taking in massive amounts of information.  It is also sorting that information out.

Top of mind keeps your brain focused on what is around it all the time.

And in business, if you are not keeping people focused on what is important, then they are not focused on you.

Just in the few seconds it took you to read those last two sentences, your brain took in massive amounts of information, and more than likely forgot about the sensations it was feeling.

This is why companies like McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi continue to advertise.  Yes, they would still have customers if they did not, but advertising keeps them top of mind so people think about them.

Now I am NOT saying you need to run television or radio commercials like McDonalds.  That is probably not appropriate for you.  What I AM saying, however, is that you do need to design ways to keep top of mind in your customers mind all the time.

Matt

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Do you test new ideas, campaigns, marketing concepts, and scripts in your business?

All of these things can have a massive impact on your business.  Just the way your salespeople ask for an order can really influence the sales of your business.

There are literally hundreds of things you can test, but here is a short list of where to begin.

Any type of salesperson interaction to where someone is asking for an order.  (Is there an add on sale, or an upsell?)

Any type of close.

How people are sent to a sales person either via phone, or in person.

A request for referrals.

Any headlines/subject lines in your email.

Any headlines in marketing or print.

This is just a very short list and is not exhaustive at all.  I’ve personally seen headlines or subject lines double or triple the open rate or the response rate of emails and other advertisements.  It is also better to test than to guess.  I also recommend only changing one little thing at a time when you are testing.  That way you know what really caused the result.

-Matt

One of the best definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.

Yet many people do this again, and again, and again.  I think this is because there is comfort in doing the same things again and again and again, instead of venturing ot and trying to do new things.  I know that I myself struggle with this sometimes.  It is easy to fall into habits or patterns that don’t make the most sense, instead of making changes that will yield different results.

The brain is a funny creature.   I think one of the best ways to instantly get out of a rut is to not add anything, but to start removing things.  Remove things from your to do list, remove things from your mind, become better organized.  Gut out the things that are not that important, not that profitable, and not that efficient.

Then you can truly experience the “less is more” factor.

Matt

How much does your environment influence your habits?  Is your working environment creating a place where you can be focused, and productive?  Is it designed to help you achieve your goals?

What are things you should look at?

Lighting

Temperate

Ergonomics of the chair and desk you use

What is on the walls?

What sounds are involved?  What do you hear?

There are a lot of things to consider.

All of them are important.

Matt

Are you a commodity, or are you perceived as a commodity?

A lot of businesses struggle because they market themselves as a commodity, they ARE a commodity, or they are perceived as a commodity.

Let’s talk about each one.

If you are always appealing to the lowest prices, you will be perceived as a commodity due to your marketing being a commodity.  In other words, if you are always chanting lowest or cheapest prices, you will attract the people who always want the lowest and cheapest prices.  So, step #1 is changing your marketing message to something that will attract other people.

If you ARE a commodity (which few people really are) then you need to get out of that business.  Now when I say get out of the business I do not necessarily mean you need to leave the business, but you need to be selling something different or change how you are selling what you are selling.  A lot of times you need to go the value added route to what you are selling.  So, if you are in insurance (something that is perceived) as a commodity, perhaps you need to negotiate a special discount for your customers at a lot of places.  So they can get better deals on cars, electronics, appliances, yard care, etc. etc.

Finally, if you are perceived as a commodity, which a lot of businesses are, then you need to educate why your customers should do business with you versus someone else.  And unless you can make a compelling case with facts, reason, and logic, then you are going to struggle.  In other words, just throwing in platitudes like, “We give good service!” or “We treat our customer rights” are not sufficient reasons.  Why?  Because ANY business can claim that, and the other response is , “Well, I would HOPE so!”

For example, say you have a convention center.  And you target organizations that need to hold a conference.  How about instead of bragging about how you have clean rooms (I would hope so!) you go and explain why your place of business, out of the 73 other convention centers and conference rooms in the XYZ area, is better.

Make a check list or a comparison chart of WHY you really are better.   Does that make sense?  And then you can PROVE it.  Offer some references or case studies, and then include a guarantee, and you’ll destroy your competition.  The absolute goal is to build your business so that prospects and customers would be stupid to go to anyone else.  You need to explain it to them, however.

-Matt

After you get someones attention, you must keep it.

What is the fastest way to lose attention?

I believe it is this:

1). To be irrelevant.

Even if you get someone’s attention, if the message is not targeted and even if it is still funny, it still doesn’t matter.

Funny is all fine and dandy, but what we are after is results. Leads, sales, and money in the bank.

So, we’ve talked about getting attention or interrupting people, and now we need to engage someone.

How do we do that? We need to find out the hot buttons or pressure points of our target market. And how do we do that?

Research. We need to ask them via surveys, and by using common sense. Find out what they want, what they do not want, what they hate, or what they dislike.

And then you use those in your marketing.

For example, if you are a dentist one example could be that you guarantee there is no wait over 5 minutes. The same can go for a doctor. Is that a pressure point or pain for people?

It is for me. I HATE waiting at those types of place. I HATE it, because even though I always have a book to read, it still bothers me for many reasons.

Does that make sense? You need to ask yourself what are the hot buttons of the people who you are trying to target.

If you say, “the only thing my prospects care about is the cheapest price” then you are either lying to yourself, or targeting the wrong customers.

If that were true, then people would only buy the absolute cheapest food, drive the cheapest cars, and wear the cheapest clothes.

If that is the case, then you are perceived as a commodity. Something you need to remove immediately. The next post will talk about this in more detail.

-Matt

Watch a lot of commercials (specifically beer commercials) and they start with an animal talking (remember the Budweiser Frogs) or something that has S-E-X to grab your attention.

They “successfully” interrupted your brain from doing what it was doing. They got your interest. The problem is, your brain generally goes back to sleep after watching the first part, because the commercial is not relevant.

Well today let’s talk about the interrupting and we can get to the rest later.

You have to get someone’s attention. Until you do that the best commercial, sales letter, blog post, or whatever media you are utilizing is worthless.

The masterpiece you’ve written about for ages does not matter until someone reads it. Does that make sense?

This is a basic copy writing principle that is talked about on a regular basis. Attention.

Now, what are some ways you can get attention. Well, there are the traditional Health, Wealth, Sex. There are also, however, pressure points that you can utilize when you are selling to your market place.

For example, if you do basement water proofing you can use a headline (and this is off the top of my head here, normally you need to write 25-30 headlines to get an awesome one).

Most Basements Leak After Being Waterproofed Within 3 Years (yes, you need to research that stat) Here’s how to avoid this.

So, if you are looking to have your basement waterproofed and you read that ad, your brain will go “What?” and then you will proceed to move on down to the next level.

More on the next part, later.

M

We’ve talked about leverage as a concept about marketing. I’ve given some examples, let me give some more.

Recently I designed a marketing system/campaign to go out BEFORE I meet with people on an appointment.

Now this is after I have an appointment set. Why do I do this?

There are several reasons.

1). Hardly anyone else does. That alone differentiates me. You don’t want to be like everyone else.

2) The material I am sending me is designed to educate the person with whom I am meeting. That makes my job easier.

3) The material is designed to position me in their mind better. In other words, the material is designed to be a “sales tool”

Now, with that being said you just can’t send a brochure or a pamphlet. Boo, boring, snore.

No, what you send is something that is interesting, educational, and fun!

The box I included had a funny comic, a candy car, and a guarantee, and was wrapped in great wrapping paper and had a lot of personalization.

Why is this so important? Because one of the main goals is we must interrupt people’s normal patterns and routines in their life. People go on autopilot and run ‘programs or scripts’ to deal with things, and if you don’t get them out of their normal routine, you will be delegated to that normal routine.

Make sense?

More on the routines and interrupting them later.

Matt

Last post I talked about leverage and why it is so important in business.

To continue on that theme and how marketing can give you leverage imagine that a marketing piece is a little sales person. It goes out there and sells a person on doing something. That piece can be, “to get more information” or “to request an appointment” or “to buy my stuff.”

Now you must understand the context of the situation. Each marketing piece should have a goal. And a marketing piece, like written about above, can have multiple goals.

So, this leverage allows to you to deploy dozens, hundreds, or thousands of little sales people out there to do your work. The work can be to raise money for a business, to generate referrals, to collect marketing information via surveys, and on and on and on. It really is amazing.

I’ll go into more details later, but just realize that proper marketing is just communication or salesmanship through media.

Matt