Are You Overlooking Marketing Diamonds?

There’s a story (true, I believe) about a farmer in South Africa who became obsessed with finding diamonds. He sold his farm and travelled the continent looking to strike it rich, but met with nothing but disappointment. Years later, he died an ingnominious death.

Meanwhile, another farmer had acquired the first man’s farm. One day he found a funny-looking rock in a river bed and placed it on his mantlepiece as a curio. When a friend saw it he practically fell off his chair - that “funny-looking rock” was a huge uncut diamond.

Further exploration of the property turned up yet more diamonds and was later developed into the richest diamond mine in the world - the Golconda .

The original owner sacrificed his life to search for what lay undeneath his feet.

[Read the whole "Acres of Diamonds" story here]

So what does this have to do with marketing?

Especially in the field of Internet marketing, everyone always seems to be searching for “the next big thing”. The next big affiliate program; the next big SEO technique; the next big conversion strategy.

Yet we often overlook the gems of marketing wisdom that are readily available to anyone who cares to look. This point was brought home to me when I listened to a teleconference recording by Perry Marshall, a well-respected Internet marketing expert.

The topic was “positioning” and how to differentiate even a commodity product (in this instance, granite of all things) from other offerings in the marketplace.

When asked about what resources and methods the business owner being interviewed by Perry had used to grow his business phenomenally (from memory, the growth was something in the order of $1MM to $20MM revenue in one year), the single resource he credited most for his success was Claude Hopkins’ 50-odd page book, Scientific Advertising.

So what?

I was half expecting him to reveal some little-known secret for members of his “Inner Circle” only - not talk about an out-of-copyright book on advertising first published in the 1920s. Today you can buy a copy in any bookshop for under 20 bucks, or even download it free of charge online [for example, I give away a free copy to newsletter subscribers who take the time to leave feedback].

Don’t misunderstand. I think Scientific Advertising is fantastic. That is precisely the point. It is so easy to be enticed by the promise of “the next big thing” when you have not yet fully internalised and utilized the information that is already within easy reach.

Why we do this I’m not sure, but I think it comes down to an unwillingness to take ACTION. Do you find yourself agonising over potential marketing decisions so much that by the time you finish thinking about it, you could have already tested your idea? I know I do, and it’s a habit I’m committed to breaking.

So I’ve resolved not to purchase any more information products or “how to” guides until I’ve more fully internalized and implemented the information I already have - starting with Scientific Advertising. I’ve already read it about 5 times, but I figure a sixth can’t hurt…

Related Articles

• No Related Post