How to develop a bulletproof Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Part 4

Convinced You Need A USP?

Part Four of Four

Here’s something I hear fairly often from clients.

“I don’t want a USP because I’m afraid to limit myself.”

I understand. When I started my online lead generation company, I stated that I offered a wide range of services including copywriting, offline marketing services, web design, graphic design, and other marketing and advertising services. Marketing Results can provide all these services today but several years ago, I simplified my USP and focused my website and my marketing on one service that’s vital to small businesses: online lead generation. Two things happened:

• 110% increase in enquiries.
• Much higher quality of lead…fewer tyre-kickers.

You would think that making potential clients aware of all the services you offer would increase the number of leads but precisely the opposite is true, as I discovered. One reason? Potential clients focus on the one service we provide that solves a specific problem: not enough qualified leads. Adjunctive services are not a distraction. This focus makes our marketing significantly easier and it makes the message easier to understand.

To develop this focus, identify a gap in your industry and choose the service you provide that fills this gap. Start by asking these questions.

1. What do people currently dislike about our industry?
2. What are our competitors’ weaknesses?
3. What specific needs are being unmet in the market?

Another client is Loans Approved, a mortgage broker specializing in serving the needs of property investors. The mortgage business is extremely competitive. We worked with the managing director to achieve marketing focus (and a much better USP). Every mortgage broker can handle a simple first home loan application but very few understand how to structure multiple loans for long-term success. Banks will structure loans on their terms unless and it turns out this can handcuff property investors and keep them from buying as many homes as they could.

The tagline for Loans Approved is…

The Property Investor’s Mortgage Broker.

Loans Approved goes well beyond this tagline. The company also provides prospects with the latest education and advice—specifically special reports and newsletters; the information reinforces their place in the market as THE experts in this highly specialized field. Prospects know precisely why it makes more sense for property investors to deal with Loans Approved than a bank or ‘one stop shop.’

Expertise in a specific niche can be a very powerful USP, especially on the Internet. Becoming more focused in a specific niche means you dominate a playing field which is always more successful than trying to secure some turf in a market that’s commoditized.

Sometimes, when I consult with a business to help them improve their online results, the company has a USP. But it’s a “faux USP” or a USP that’s not appealing to the target market. The classic faux USP is the One Stop Shop. For example:

“We’re a one stop shop for anyone interested in building wealth. I’m an accountant and I have a mortgage broker and a financial planner and a conveyancer to whom I can refer clients.”

The one stop shop sounds extremely convenient. Unfortunately, this strategy rarely works for small businesses. Why? There’s no focus and the prospect gets no sense you’re an expert. People will pay for expertise or specialization; in fact, they’ll pay MORE. There’s a reason heart surgeons and brain surgeons are paid much, much more than general doctors. If you went to see a knee specialist, I’m confident you would find it weird if the doctor said,

“I also perform open heart surgery.”

On the Internet, especially with search, prospective clients are looking for specific answers to specific problems. If you’re a small business, trying to solve too many problems is a mistake. Yes, the patient looking for a knee operation might need a new heart; the knee specialist refers the patient to the cardiologist. Yes, the knee doctor can help patients with a variety of ailments but he promotes himself as a specialist with a narrow focus.

Even big companies that offer a wide range of services stick to advertising they offer one solution. Again, take the example of FedEx. They sell themselves as offering just one solution (overnight package delivery) but they offer full logistics services.

Don’t tell anyone, but, at Marketing Results, we’re a one stop shop for lead generation and marketing. But our focus is providing a single solution: online lead generation. We don’t emphasize all the services we offer: AdWords management, conversion rate optimization, and search engine optimization—plus design, copywriting, and more. But the marketing center of gravity in the eyes of the prospect is getting leads through the Internet.

Here’s the real beauty of focus. Once you’ve solved the client’s problem the client trusts you, you can ask for additional business in related fields. Our USP helps us find clients because it’s extremely focused. Here’s the full version.

As Australia’s leading internet lead generation experts,
Marketing Results uses sophisticated web analytics to
precisely understand how visitors are interacting with your
website, then leverage proven traffic and conversion
strategies to cut marketing waste, expand your reach and
effectiveness and boost website profits by 2 to 21 times
(based on over 5 years of documented client results).

Again, we provide all the competencies necessary to help our clients. But the focus is lead generation. Clients don’t care that we offer all the services—all they want is qualified leads!

Final USP Thoughts

Online, a well-built USP plays a vital role keeping visitors on your website and letting prospects know you can solve a problem. When I’m working with clients, the first step is to write a compelling USP then base all the marketing around the USP. And remember, positioning is 50 times more important, and profitable, than branding.

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How to develop a bulletproof Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Part 3

A USP is not a slogan and a slogan is Not a USP…Crafting a Powerful USP and the Qualities of a Successful USP

Part Three of Four

A tagline is a short sentence or phrase that’s often part of, or next to, a logo. Here are some examples of taglines.

• Built Ford Tough
• USAirways: Fly with US
• YouTube: Broadcast Yourself
• Papa John’s: Papa’s in the House

A tagline is NOT the same as a USP. Your tagline is usually too short to communicate your entire USP. However, a great tagline quickly summarizes the full USP and communicates the key selling proposition in one or two seconds. A USP can be a few words or it can be full paragraph. Defining then encapsulating into what makes you different, unique, and desirable is more important than word county.

Remember, the successful USP answers this question: why should a potential client or customer buy from you? When answering this question, promise something special your competitors cannot deliver. Before we create your UPS, take a look at these excellent examples.

• SpeedFedEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.
• Quality/SelectionWoolworth’s: The Fresh Food People
• GuaranteeCraftsman Tools: If any Craftsman hand tool fails to provide complete
  satisfaction, return it for free repair or replacement. Period. The first
  Craftsman hand tool we sold back in 1927 is still under warranty today.

Just as some taglines are poor, many USPs are awful. These approaches are too vague plus they are not unique.

• “Good Quality and Low Prices.”
• “Affordable Quality Since 1984.”
• “Service With A Smile.”
• “Excellence In Quality And Service.”

These USPs are commonplace and they scream, THESE COMPANIES KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MARKETING AND ARE DOOMED TO FAIL.

Four steps to creating a bulletproof USP.

STEP ONE. Choose your category. USPs are grouped into one of these:

Price. Quality. Service. Speed. Selection. Convenience. Guarantee. Customisation. Originality. Specialisation.

STEP TWO. Crystallise and communicate your unique strengths by asking yourself these four questions:

1. What do you offer your competitors don’t?
2. Is #1 important to your customers?
3. How easy is it for competitors to copy?
4. Can it be communicated easily?

Ask your current clients and customers what they like about your products and services.

STEP THREE. Flesh out the concepts. These concepts are broad. For example, if you choose ‘Service’ as your category, you have to say more and be more specific than “We Give GREAT Service.” This type of cliché will not convince someone to stay on your website.

STEP FOUR. Lay on the proof.

We use these steps with our clients before we take any of the steps necessary to generate leads.

How Would You Like an 800% Increase in Sales?

We built a USP for a client who sells stickers, primarily customized bumper stickers: CustomizedStickers.com; we proved that even a product as seemingly simple as a sticker can benefit from a USP. Here’s how we answered the USP formation questions.

What they offer: Customized Stickers only offers low prices on full colour stickers, but they also include added benefits at no extra charge: a free artwork service, unlimited colours, plus UV-resistant coatings.

Is it important to the customer? Yes. Stickers are a “commodity” item and customers are typically price-sensitive. Many potential customers resent the extra cost and inconvenience of getting artwork designed separately. All-in-one pricing is simpler and more transparent; customers like the ‘no hidden charges’ benefit.

Is it easy for competitors to copy? Competitors could copy these advantages but with great difficulty. Customized Stickers is the first to claim this space and can back up the promise through their unique production process. They can cost-effectively offer the added value of not injecting hidden charges.

Can it be communicated? Yes. The tagline? Full Colour Stickers at a 1-Colour Price. The content on the website augments, enhances, and buttresses the promise.

The result?

Customized Stickers clearly defined their USP and built their traffic generation and conversion around their USP. In 18 months, we helped Customized Stickers boost their online sales by over 800% to more than $2 million.

 … to be continued.

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How to develop a bulletproof Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Part 2

A Strong USP is Much More Important (and Profitable) than Branding

Part Two of Four

If you’ve read marketing books, been to conferences, or sat down with a marketing or advertising consultant, you may have heard the word ‘branding.’ For small business owners, it’s an extremely dangerous word: you can quickly waste tens of thousands of dollars on branding at the recommendation of a branding consultant or advertising agency that uses words like ‘brand-centric’ or similar nonsense. Ask a branding agency or a branding consultant about results. Ask them to show the actual revenue their latest ‘branding’ campaign produced. If you’re an owner or a marketing manager at a small or mid-sized business, be extremely wary when you hear amorphous marketing chatter about “building your online brand” and “leveraging brand equity.”

It’s tempting to listen to the branding experts and hand them money. After all, big companies spend money on branding so it must produce an ROI, right? Let’s take a quick look at branding and what it really means. To “brand” a product or service is to imprint your mark on it. Branding started to differentiate items that look similar…like horses and cattle.

The goal of branding is to increase awareness. Companies pour money into branding campaigns because they want to imprint the brand into the mind of the consumer, increase awareness, and create a certain feeling. The hope: when it’s time to make a buying decision, the consumer will recognize the brand, like its associations, remember the funny ad he or she saw on TV last night, remember the ‘certain feeling’ and buy ‘Brand X’ over all the other brands. Although it’s difficult to measure, branding can be effective for large companies that sell a mass-market service or product. And you must have deep, deep pockets to buy TV time and radio spots plus big ads in newspapers and magazines.

In one of his blogs, Dan Kennedy, widely regarded as one the top small business marketing experts (and an excellent marketer himself), writes:

“I do counsel AGAINST investing directly into brand-building, especially with large-company style ‘image’ advertising that cannot be accurately and ruthlessly held accountable.”

Kennedy has a brand called “No B.S. Marketing” but it’s not where Kennedy spends his marketing money. And Dan Kennedy’s brand is Dan Kennedy. Kennedy has a logo with him standing behind a bull. That’s about it for Kennedy’s branding.

Highly successful direct response copywriter and marketing consultant Bob Bly, who is no great fan of branding, wrote a blog titled “Is Madison Avenue a Big Fraud?” In the blog he talks about an advertisement for Six Flags, a chain of American amusement parks. The ad is set in a town where everyone is so busy working they have no time to have fun. Up rolls a Six Flags bus and out pops an old man who starts dancing wildly. All the people in the town get on the bus, go to Six Flags and have a big time. Bly said the ad world acclaimed the ad for its “humor, energy, and cleverness.”

According to Bly, who cites Parade magazine, the ad campaign cost $72 million yet generated no increase in attendance and “not a drop of added revenue.” Look up Six Flags on Wikipedia and you’ll discover the New York Stock Exchange delisted the company in April 2009 and it filed for bankruptcy on June 13 the same year.

If you’re still in doubt about branding, watch a YouTube video comparing direct response (measurable) advertising to general (branding) advertising. The star of the video? David Ogilvy, one of the most famous and successful advertisers in the history of advertising. From the video…

General advertisers know almost nothing for sure because they cannot measure the results of their advertising.

I’m not bashing branding and the merchants of branding because I dislike branding experts. I can think of at least two I like. I’m bashing branding because I don’t want you to waste your money on branding.

Yes, a branding agency may win awards at advertising awards dinners and a campaign may temporarily (and expensively) build awareness, but it won’t produce what every small business needs: a daily torrent of qualified leads. Branding will not help you get these leads. We spend, and our successful clients spend, every marketing dollar and every ounce of psychic bandwidth generating qualified sales leads instead of building awareness.

Do You Want Customers to “Be Aware” or Do You Want them to Buy?

Instead of branding, start by positioning your product or service in the mind of potential customers.

Positioning begins by answering this question:

Why should I give my business to you, when with one click of a mouse button, or by flipping open the Yellow Pages. I can find 10 other providers who offer the same service?

When my clients answer this question in a compelling way, they start to generate top-quality enquiries and sales leads. And you can achieve this whether you’re a household name on the Internet or your website went live only last week. And when it comes to claiming prime USP real estate, it’s first-come, first-served. Think about the golf course: there may be other courses in the area with excellent greens but Rolling Lakes Country Club claimed the space first.

One of My Favorite USPs

Dilmah Tea is an example of a well-positioned business. I enjoy the tea and also admire the positioning. Founder Merill J. Fernando clearly differentiated his tea by focusing around a single, unique, and appealing idea. Here’s the tagline…The Single Origin Tea. (As I will detail in a minute, a tagline is not a USP and a USP is not a tagline.)

The company fleshes out the tagline in several places.

Each box of Dilmah tea contains a folded insert explaining the care the company takes sourcing, packing, and delivering each cup of their tea. There’s some excellent copy on their website. Here’s an excerpt.

Dilmah is the product of a lifetime devoted to tea. Founder of Dilmah, Merrill J. Fernando embarked on a quest to bring quality back to tea when in the 1950s, he witnessed the concentration of ownership in the tea industry into the hands of a few large corporations and as a result, the ‘commoditisation’ of tea. As one of the first Ceylonese to have the opportunity to be trained in tea, Merrill harboured a dream since his initiation in the world of tea, to launch his own brand of tea, and to offer consumers the choice of something truly different. His dream took over three decades to come true, and in 1988 he launched his own brand – Dilmah, coined from the names of his two sons Dilhan and Malik. Dilmah introduced lovers of fine tea to the concept of tea ‘picked, perfected and packed’ at origin. Being owned and managed by a tea producer, Dilmah is also a role model for producing countries. Merrill pioneered the concept of ‘Single Origin Tea,’ choosing to remain faithful to Ceylon Tea, acknowledged the finest tea on earth.

It’s “About Us” copy but notice how the copywriter wove these strands into a compelling story.

• A lifetime devoted to tea
• Struggling against the corporate hegemony to fulfil a dream
• The family story behind the name
• A model for developing countries
• Remaining faithful to Ceylon Tea

Combined, these elements of the story create a Unique Selling Proposition. And it’s a USP oozing with authenticity so often missing from most marketing.

… to be continued.

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How to develop a bulletproof Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Part 1

How a Bumper Sticker Company Increased Online Sales by over 800%, Starting with a New USP

Part One Of Four

Pizza aficionados might disagree but, when it comes to delivery and ‘mass market’ pizza, there’s not a big difference in quality between the major players. I’m confident a blind taste test would prove my point.

To be successful, a pizza company must differentiate itself from the other pizza companies by positioning themselves as better and different. A small company in the United States faced this differentiation challenge in the 1960s. Tom Monaghan had bought his brother’s share of Domino’s Pizza (for a used Volkswagen Beetle) and was sleeping on a cot in the store. At the time, Domino’s was just another pizza restaurant in Michigan. Monaghan needed to increase revenue and he wanted to grow a franchise. To make Domino’s stand out from the competition, Domino’s came up with a promise:

Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free.

In 2009, Domino’s reported $1.4 billion in revenue.

People in the shipping and logistics business might disagree but what’s the difference between the major shipping companies to the average person in the street who wants a package or letter delivered overnight? FedEx recognized this and, like Dominos, came up with a promise.

When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.

FedEx went from being a small courier service based in Tennessee to one of the largest companies in the world; its airplanes travel nearly 500,000 miles a day.

When a potential customer decides to order a pizza, they’ve already decided to buy a pizza. The question becomes, “which pizza company?” When somebody needs to ship a package across the country and it has to be there tomorrow, they’ve already decided to ship the package. The question becomes, “which shipping company?”

Domino’s and FedEx succeeded and grew rapidly in part because they made a promise to their customers and kept the promise. In marketing, we call this promise a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
In the mind of a potential client or customer, a USP defines the company’s position in the market. The USP positions a product or service as unique and desirable in the eyes of prospects and customers. The USP is the foundation of a marketing strategy for any company and every company that wants to be successful MUST have a clear USP.

Almost every day, I’m reminded of the importance of how vital a USP is to the success of every marketing project. A great USP with average execution can succeed but a weak USP with superb execution usually fails.

When I ask a prospective client, “what’s your USP?” I usually get this reply.

“What does USP stand for?”

I recently spoke to 165 business owners at an online marketing seminar; fewer than 10 of the attendees were able to state their USP. That’s the bad news. The good news is that each of these 165 business owners could quickly answer these questions:

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors?
2. Why do repeat clients and customers like you?
3. What makes you better than your competitors?

If you can answer these questions, you can develop a USP. You know what makes your company different and better but you must communicate this to prospects. It takes a little time to develop a USP but there’s no cost; the USP is especially important for digital marketing.

Visitors to your website usually arrive through a search engine. Let’s say a man has decided to buy his loved one a diamond necklace. He’s already decided to buy so now the decision becomes, “which jewelry store is going to get my business?” If you’re in the diamond necklace business and you’re one of the sites the man is visiting, your competitors’ sites are just a click away. So it’s vital to differentiate your jewelry store quickly so they choose you and click around your site and ultimately click ‘buy now’ on your website instead of clicking to another site.

Leave Price Wars Behind

One of the major benefits of a strong USP is that it can help you get out of price war. Yes, some people shop purely for price and ‘the absolute lowest prices’ can be a USP but let’s take a look at Domino’s and FedEx. These companies stress a benefit, not price. Yes, price is important but it’s not the only factor in a buying decision.

When you position yourself correctly, you can charge more. For example, let’s say you’re in the public golf course business, which can be extremely competitive. Let’s say you’re in a suburb and there are five golf courses near yours and there’s a brutal price war going on and you’d like to get out of the battle. Golfers always comment on the quality of the greens at your course. A strong USP could be: Rolling Lakes Country Club has The Best Greens in the South Ridgewood area. Golfers value great putting surfaces and would be willing to pay for a course with excellent greens. In the New York City area, where golf can be funereally slow, especially on weekends, a course guarantees “a round of golf in four hours or less or your next greens fee is on us.” It’s a highly successful USP.

… to be continued

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Online Advertising Still Robust But Growth Flattening

Here are some recent stats that give a quick snapshot of the Australian online media landscape (data from this report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Australia).

Exhibit A: Online advertising spend grew 27% from 2007 to 2007

Exhibit B: Compare Q4 2007 with Q4 2008 and you’ll note a healthy 22% increase.

Exhibit C: Now take a look at a comparison of Q3 2008 with Q4 2008 – growth is still positive, but it’s slowed to just 2% (an annualised rate of 8%).

Conclusion: there’s still plenty of activity online and advertisers are still spending money to make money.  But as competition for customers hots up, renewed focus on testing and tracking ROI is essential.

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7 Step Game Plan For Boosting Your Online Sales In A Slower Economy

Lately the media seem to be rubbing everyone’s faces in the “slower economy”.   I don’t like it – it gets people in the wrong frame of mind, thinking contractionary thoughts rather than expansionary ones.

So it seems there’s a recession on, but I’m refusing to participate.

It’s true that there are fewer discretionary dollars being spent, but all is not doom and gloom, especially in the online space.  On the macro-level, the indicators look strong:

A recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers Europe comments that while a contracting ecomomy normally reduces total media spend, investment in online marketing and media continues to increase rapidly:

“…overall online advertising growth is expected to slow down to about 20% according to the Advertising Association. While this is still a very strong growth rate, far stronger than other forms of offline advertising, this represents a slowdown compared with last year’s growth rate of 38%.”

So we can still expect 20% growth in online spend this year.

Another perspective: online was the third biggest media category in the UK in 2007 with a 16% share (behind Print Display and TV).  By 2009, it is expected to become the single largest advertising channel.

[While this is UK data, the general trends are equally applicable to the Australian market]

Here’s a 7-step program that I recommend for any business owner who wants to increase sales, even in a slower economy.  Outsized rewards will go to companies who implement these steps:

The 7 Step Online Marketing Game Plan

1. Know how much a client is worth to you after the initial transaction, and in the first 3, 6, 12 and 24 months of doing business (or whatever time periods make sense in your particular business) – this gives you your Allowable Cost of Acquisition.
2. Know how much a lead/sale is costing you, split by source. This means that all online goals need to be tracked (this can be done with Google Analytics for general goals and Google Adwords conversion tracking for Adwords-generated conversions).
3. Track everything, not just Adwords. Other types of online campaigns such as email newsletters can be tracked with Google’s URL Builder. This will tell you the exact volume of sales generated from a specific email blast, for example.
4. Make sure ALL ads and promotions are associated with a specific, trackable offer. You should not be running ANY promotions with a generic “call us” offer.  Many of our clients run print ads that invite prospects to download a Special Report or Info Kit by following a special, tracked, URL.  This allows them to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working.
5. Cultivate and develop MORE THAN ONE successful lead generation approach. Many websites are highly dependent on, say, Adwords alone.  If Google changes their Terms Of Service or the way they serve ads (and they frequently do), this could literally put you out of business.  You need to test and run with at least 5 separate, independent prospecting methods that you can call on if required.Most of our clients have successful PPC accounts, SEO campaigns, referral systems and offline campaigns running simultaneously, automated via their website as the central “hub”.  If any one lead generation channel dries up, they still have a business.
6. Don’t drop new leads quickly – nurture them. You should aim to develop the following three communication sequences to make as much of incoming leads as possible: (a) – one for “soft leads” before they enquire (i.e. an info pack, or Special Report), backed up by a ongoing sequence of education-and-information emails.(b) – one between the initial enquiry and closing the sale – could be a book, a White Paper, or a Feasibility Analysis.(c) - one for un-converted leads who may convert in future.Especially where the value of a new client to your business is high, these communication sequences can deliver exceptional ROI.  You’ll also notice that almost nobody you’ve done business with in the past does this.  If you do it, you’ll be exceptional in the eyes of your prospects – always a good thing!
7. Resell to your existing client base by offering more value. Don’t forget about your current client base – how can you serve them better?  One of the most effective ways to develop a more stable cashflow and serve you clients better is to offer some kind of continuity-based service.For health supplement companies, this means shipping the product every month until the customer says “stop”.  For professional services, this might mean providing a retainer service on an ongoing basis for a set price.

Whatever you do, don’t succumb to the doom-and-gloom in the media.  Executing the 7 Step Game Plan can bulletproof your marketing engine so you can not only survive but thrive in 2009.

Summary for business owners:

• Overall media spend will decline in the short term while online spend will continue to increase rapidly.
• Within the online category, advertisers are moving away from non-accountable methods (e.g. display advertising such as banner advertising) and toward accountable methods (e.g. paid search such as Google Adwords).
• This means that more dollars will be spent online to attract fewer customers (although more customers are shifting their purchasing from offline to online as well).
• Many of the new entrants into the online space will be unsophisitcated players who don’t know what they’re doing (yet).
• Companies with tightly managed and monitored online campaigns can expect to do as well if not better than they have always done.

–

Marketing Results can of course help you ramp up the lead and sales generation capacity of your website with smart, accountable marketing so you can focus on managing and growing your business.  Contact us to enquire about availability on our Gold Client Program for SMEs.

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“Free Gift”, and other poor grammar that boosts your sales

Copywriter Bob Bly refers in this post to a debate he’s been having with one of his newsletter subscribers about the phrase “Free Gift”. Although a gift is necessarily free, many direct response ads and sales letters feature this phrase, along with many other instances of poor grammar, like:

• Excessive… use… of… elipsis and other punctuation marks
• “Use of quotation marks around headlines”
• Phrases like, “return the product for a prompt and courteous refund” – what exactly is a “courteous” refund?
• Lots Of Headlines Printed In Sentence Case
• Sentences that begin with “and”, “but” and “so”.

Mr Bly’s correspondent argues that “Free gift” is bad writing, whereas Mr Bly’s position is that you should do what works. Including “Free” has been proven to outsell the alternative – so why not use it?

I’ve conducted tests in the past that use “unconventional” English, and where these outperform the control, it’s not uncommon for a client to argue for staying with the less effective version that features “correct” grammar.

While typos and sloppy punctuation are unacceptable in marketing materials, isn’t this all about greater response for less marketing spend? Whadayareckon?

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15 Ways To Leverage an Article

Mike Krsticevic recently sent me a mind map called “How to leverage an article found in a magazine that relates to your industy”.

It contains a number of great ideas so with Mike’s permission I’ve reprinted it below.

How To Leverage an Article Found In A Magazine That Relates To Your Industry

1. Email a scanned copy of the article to your database preceded by a short commentary (if not already understood by your readers) that you wanted to keep them informed of changes in the industry. Induces reciprocity; builds pre-eminence.

2. Keep a copy of the article on file (preferably in scanned form that is readily accessible or searchable in a database) so that when you meet someone and the conversation you have with them lends itself to you being able to offer to email, fax or post the article to them, you can do so quickly. This will build your pre-eminence with that person.

3. Refer to the article in future emailings to clients generally and quote portions of it that are interesting without needing to send the whole article.

4. Contact the author and build rapport with them with the view to leveraging the contacts this author has with prominent people in your industry that he or she has interviewed and will interview in the future.

5. Contact the author and build rapport with the author with the view to becoming a
quoted person/expert on future topics related to your industry in order to build pre-eminence.

6. Use the ideas in this article to realise that if you are trying to create a host-beneficiary partnership arrangement with a particular person or company, you could find a swag of articles that relate to your prospective H-B partner’s industry to increase your own knowledge of that industry AND send to the intended contact, from time to time, articles of interest to your prospective H-B partner – build rapport and pre-eminence via your increased understanding of their industry.

7. Develop a “stadium pitch” opening line using the statistics provided in the article, eg, “There are only two mortgage insurers in the market today and one of them has substantially increased its claim denials over the last 3 months. How will this affect your attempts to get a loan? Does your broker know who this mortgage insurer is? If they don’t know this information, what impact will that have on their ability to help you get the best loan deal when buying your new home?”

8. Use statistics from the article in your own copywriting material.

9. Presentation Aid: Make a copy of the article, highlight portions of the article and then place it in a plastic sleeve and bring it out when dealing with clients. Refer to highlighted statistics to show prospects three things: (1) you keep up with industry developments; (2) show how your knowledge of this information means you will provide them with a better service or the product you are promoting will help them avoid the problems raised in the article; and (3) use it to overcome an objection or pre-frame a prospect to remove a potential objection.

10. If the article is found in a magazine that is read by your prospective clients, you could consider entering into a H-B partnership arrangement with the magazine to access their database of readers (ie, your prospects).

11. If your prospects read the publication in which the article was published, you could prepare an article or two or a series for publication in the magazine in order to build pre-eminence with your target market.

12. Once you write articles that are published in the magazine, keep copies to send to your list of suspects, prospects and clients – massive pre-eminence builder.

13. Consider advertising in the publication you found the article in IF its readers are also your target clients.

14. Use an article or the information you find in an article (particularly statistics) as a reason to contact your database of clients (preferably via email) to conduct your own survey to cross-check the findings in the articles with a promise that you will share your findings with them. This creates pre-eminence again and gives you an excuse to contact your client base at least twice with some interesting and useful information.

15. Create mindmaps which summarise the main points of an article you read and send your database a copy of the full article and your summary so they can choose to read one or the other depending on their desire for a low or high level of detail.

Thanks for the great ideas, Mike!

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7 Key Trends In Advertising and Lead Generation for 2007

The other day I was chatting with colleagues about some of the implications of a recent happening in Australian media: Electronics maker LG was barred by all commercial and Pay TV stations from televising an ad for a TV recorder that specifically promoted the benefits of skipping ads.

From the original article:

The original ad featured a line that would have had universal appeal to TV viewers: “When you replay, you can skip the ads.”

But after the commercial and pay TV networks refused to run it LG recut it to include the considerably less catchy line: “And when you replay, you can skip straight back to the action.”

While the networks may have won this time, it’s obvious that TV recording technology is here to stay and that the power balance, at least ostensibly, will shift in favour of consumers.

This article sparked off some thoughts that I’ve written up into my…

7 Key Trends In Advertising and Lead Generation 2007

1. Greater use of product placement, sponsorship and ads that aren’t ads.I’ve recently been watching HBO Drama The Wire (best drama on TV?) and one thing that caught my eye is the omnipresence of Heineken beer, usually featured with the label nicely facing the camera. Obviously some moolah is changing hands there.I also lived in Japan for 4 years, where I swear almost everything on TV is an ad. Whenever a product, place or event is favourably reviewed, you can bet dollars to doughnuts (or if you’re from the US, “donuts” ) that money is involved (a fact that is almost never disclosed). Me, I prefer journalistic impartiality, but that’s clearly on the way out.
2. More precise targeting of messages, even mass media onesFollowing the inevitable rise of TV recording technology, some industry experts have commented that advertising is not dead, but that advertisers will be forced to target their ads more precisely at viewers to make them want to watch the ads.It’s also fairly easy to conceive of a system that serves ads according to individual viewer habits and preferences, perhaps on a “pay per impression” or pay per action” model (mmmm… the Google Adwords of TV marketing?)While this concept would obviously be many times more effective than current mass-broadcast technology, it’s still “push” marketing. While there’s some mileage in this concept, search-based marketing is likely to return higher conversion rates and ROI (cf. Google Adwords Search conversion rates vs Content conversion rates – search is almost always higher).
3. The rise of education-based lead generation and marketing Reports, White Papers, DVDs, Audio Programs, software etc. will be given away (or sold) with the aim of enticing prospects to “self-select” and allow advertisers to focus their energies and promotional dollars on high-probability prospects rather than anyone and everyone. I’m now currently conducting lead generation campaigns for companies who traditionally wouldn’t have touched this “direct marketing” stuff with a bargepole.
4. Accountable, by-the-metrics marketing will become an imperative If you don’t do it, you’ll be eaten alive (or at the very least, have a few limbs savaged by hungry corporate alligators). The web obviously facilitates accountable marketing like no other medium, but “offline” direct marketing will also experience a boost at the expense of above the line advertising.
5. PR and spin will trump orchestrated brand-building and marketing efforts. Making products and services into news will be a skill for which companies will pay handsomely.
6. Tighter niches and greater specialisation Gaining greater “share of mind” will become even more difficult, and we can expect more focus on more highly-specialised niche markets as opposed to line-extension or diversification strategies. (See Al Ries’ magnificent book, Focus)
7. Blue Ocean Strategies The rewards of value innovation will become even greater as smart companies refuse to mash themselves to a pulp butting heads with their competitors in hyper-crowded markets. Instead, the most successful companies and brands will strive to create uncontested market space – easier said than done.

So there are my 7 key trends. Do you have any more you think deserve a mention? Leave a comment!

** By the way, a recent blog post by Yaro Starak touched on a related subject to this post, Should Bloggers Accept Money For Reviews?

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8 out of 10 Marketing Approaches You Try Will Not Work

98%* of the books or articles you read about marketing will contain glowing reports of what worked well. You never hear much about the things that fizzed, splatted or imploded.

That’s quite different from the real world. Yes, there are some smart or experienced marketers who can make campaigns work like gangbusters most of the time. But in most cases, the reality is this: Most marketing approaches you try will FAIL or be only marginally successful.

You’ll send out direct mails that get a pitiful response. You’ll place an ad that burns a hole in your marketing budget but goes nowhere. We’ve all been there.

But the important thing to remember is….

It doesn’t matter!

If you follow the rule of conservatively testing marketing approaches on a small scale before rolling them out only once they’ve proven themselves, you won’t go far wrong.

Most marketers don’t test enough options (I include myself here). Over the next quarter I resolve to double the number of marketing tests I conduct – I’ll report back with any interesting results.

Question: what marketing tests have YOU conducted in the past? What were the insights or results?

* This figure may not be strictly accurate. I just made it up.

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