Marketing Rant

Marketing is part art and part science. You can argue which part is bigger or more important. Most people would agree though that marketing is very practical — it’s all about investing some dollars and cents so as you’d get back a larger quantity of dollars and cents later on. Right?

Well, yes, sort of. See, there is also a metaphysical side of marketing, which I’d like to touch on today.

I’ve seen it time and again, how some people follow every single rule in the book and create what would seem to be a killer copy, then send it out and get only mediocre results. And then someone else would whip out a totally amateurish piece and bring in a ton of new business.

How is that possible?

There is an explanation.

Everything is energy. Your sales copy is just a medium to transmit your energy to other people.

So when you are trying to figure out why a particular piece did not perform as expected, try to remember how you felt while writing it. Also, try to remember what your gut was telling you when you were about to hit the Send button. Were you excited? Were you confident? Or were you feeling that uncomfortable “suction” in you gut?

Also, were you sending it out to “give” or were you sending it out to “get”? If you send it out to “give” and in your heart of hearts believe that this stuff is going to help someone, this energy will be in your letter. If you are sending it out to “get”, you are coming from a “need” or “scarcity” mentality and that bad energy is going to be there too.

Good energy — good results.

Bad energy — bad results.

Honestly, I don’t know how it works but it does work. And it works in all areas of our lives, not just in marketing.

I am hardly a master of that force and still learning. Yet, speak with any successful marketer and you’ll find that not only they are very aware of this force but also know how to direct their own energy, and that’s what makes them successful.

They also listen to their tummy a lot. Because it’s your tummy and not your head that knows what’s right for you and what isn’t.

“Whatever we send out, we get back 10 fold”
- Kody Bateman, CEO and Founder of SendOutCards

“The key to success is to raise your own energy; when you do, people will naturally be attracted to you. And when they show up, bill ‘em!”
- Stuart Wilde (as quoted in Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.)

No I am not mistaken: Taylor Hicks is only number #2. Not on the American Idol, of course. I’m talking about Google’s Zeigeist, a service that shows you the most popular (searched-for) phrases over the last week.

Here’re the 15 most popular phrases:

1. clay aiken
2. taylor hicks
3. danica patrick
4. famke janssen
5. indy 500
6. rebecca romijn
7. memorial day
8. juggernaut
9. ghost rider
10. dixie chicks
11. ellen page
12. kimberly dozier
13. hugh jackman
14. coco
15. katharine mcphee

While this is an interesting service that tell you what many people “out there” are instested in, I’m in for a surprise: I can only identify 8 out of the 15 most popular phrases and why they are in that list (and 3 have to do with Americal Idol). For the rest of them, I am clueless.

Hmm… Maybe I need to bone up a bit or what’s going on in the world.

Or maybe not. Because “the world” is not my target. And not yours either. Figuring out what’s “hot” in your niche a lot more important.

Yet, if you can hook people with something that appeals to a very large audience this can help you attract more prospect.

I, for instance, is interested to see how the traffic to this blog will increase because of this little article.

Ever since I read about James Sterling Moran, a publicity icon and a master of outrageous stunt, I wanted to know HOW he managed to sell a refrigerator to an Alaska Eskimo.

Last week, I found an answer. Turns out, none other than Toronto’s own Mel Lastman pulled out a similar stunt and sold a fridge to an Inuit.

First, a few words about Mel. He is our former mayor and the holder of the world record of mayoral longevity (38 years in a row!). In 1955, he founded a chain of furniture and electronics stores called Bad Boy.

Bad Boy had to compete with the “big boys”, large retailers with deep pockets and a lot of dollars in their advertising budgets. Our hero managed to survive and prosper — and become a celebrity — by using a series of publicity stunts designed to seize the attention of the buying public.

So, how did our Bad Boy Mel manage to sell a fridge to an Inuit?

He LISTENED to his customer’s needs.

Inuit don’t need a fridge to keep the food cold. There is no lack of permafrost to ensure their food doesn’t go bad prematurely .

Where the fridge comes in handy is when they need to protect the food from the animals never ceasing to try to dig it out and steal it.

Last week, ex-mayor Mel returned to Bad Boy. One can only guess what other publicity stunts Mr. Lastman has up his sleeve. One thing’s for sure: The Brick, Leon’s and their likes are about to lose some customers.

I’m spending as much time working from my home office as working from my “office” office, or my clients’ offices. Yes, I do have a PDA (it’s a grown up Palm Pilot called AlphaSmart, a laptop alternative). But I’m not too diligent when it comes to synchronizing it with my Outlook.

Now, the new Google Calendar comes to my rescue. The Quick Add feature is the best. It’s almost like having a human personal assistant. “Susan, I am having lunch with John Q. The Client at 12:30 PM tomorrow”.

And what if I’m not online? Well, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem because I have my daily to do list with me.

Alright. I’m giving it a try.

Today, I did a 1 hour talk to a class of 12-graders. It was the son of one of the guys in my business networking group who invited me (Thank you Michael. It was great to meet you.)

They had “leaders” of various caliber speak to them about “business”.

I wish they did this to me when I was in Grade 12! (I actually never was in Grade 12, but that’s another story.)

Based on my experience of working with these kids’ dads and moms, I didn’t expect them to know much, if anything, about marketing.

Not them. Not these kids.

Well, I was in for a nice surprise. The AIDA formula (stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, in case you have not been around Planet Earth for the last 120 years) was old hat to them.

I kid thee not: They can teach their own parents some marketing! And if they did, maybe those parents wouldn’t be struggling as much in their little businesses. And who knows, maybe those businesses wouldn’t be so little anymore.

Among all the spam I shovel out of my Inbox every day, I get some interesting pieces. The one I got today was particularly hilarious.

Dear alex@bizLeverage.com:

Our company offer Target marketing services:

1. Supply target emaiI-list (Just for your order).

2. Custom-built your email-list and send out your email
message for you.

Right… I guess it doesn’t get any more “targeted” than this, does it?

The elections are back.

I just got off the phone with someone soliciting my support for one of the political parties (alas, not the one that will get my vote).

You turn on the TV, and it’s all about political debates, non-stop.

Newspapers keep polling their readers on which way they are going to vote (or even on whether they are going to vote at all).

And as if all that wasn’t enough, my son Eugene, who’s 10-years old, came from the school yesterday and started telling me which parties I shouldn’t vote for. NDP is this, and the Green Party is that. He really didn’t leave me much room for manoeuvre, some fervent kid! Well, turns out, he had a very serious political discussion on the way home on the bus with Mathew, his buddy from Grade 8.

Crazy.

If even 10-year old kids are so enthralled by this debate, what do smart referral marketers do in this situation?

Answer: They create a campaign that has a tie-in to the current news!

A word of warning: When you work on your “tie-in”, make sure to add a dose of humour, as otherwise your message may be mistaken for being a part of the event itself and dismissed as junk.

This is exactly what we are going to do: create a campaign.

“I Vote: You!”

Here’s an idea for an easy-to-do inexpensive campaign (in most cases, you can set it up in just one day).

Create a card - or a postcard - showing a polling station and a person inserting their vote into the “box”. As you can see on the sample card provided here, I used a heart-shaped cut-out for the picture to make it look less official: As I already suggested, you don’t want them to mistaken you for a politician trying to drum up their support.

If you’d like, you can replace the Elections Canada logo on the polling station with your company’s logo.

Add the headline that reads, “I Vote: YOU!”.

And that’s it! We’re ready to rock’n'roll.

The successful execution of this campaign depends on answering the three questions:

- Who are we going to send this card to?
- What exactly are we going to say on this card?
- How will this card get printed and mailed?

In lieu of space in the blog, I provided the detailed answers to all these questions in this special report, The Fastest, Easiest, Most Effective Way To Drum Up More Business This Very Week By Creating A Tie-In To … The Elections. Just click on the link to download the report (no, you don’t need to register, I won’t ask you for your email address.)

Happy Referrals & ’till next week.

Would you like to buy a few… pixels?

A client sent me this link a couple of days ago: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com. I figure that was no accident, as this site is now hitting the radar screens of news agencies and tabloids worldwide. (I was also timely as I just finished reading — and re-reading — a great book on P.T. Barnum written by Joe Vitale.)

Alex Tew, a 21 years old Brit, created a webpage consisting of 1 million pixels. Now he sells them (pixels, that is) as advertising space at $1 per pixel.

If you go this website right now, it may not even come up: It’s a stampede of Internet users from all over the world rushing there to take a look-see or buy some pixels.

According the the man, it all started as a simple idea – a very outrageous idea – to make a few bucks that would pay the university tuition. Nice score on that one! There no shade of doubt in my mind this tuition will no longer be a problem. The real question is, does Alex Tew need it anymore? I think those university professors have a lot to learn from him!

Hmm… maybe I should go buy me some pixels before they’re all gone.

See you in 2006!

Joe Vitale made my day. I don’t remember laughing so hard in my life. (Good thing Irina was at the office and the kids were at school, they’d think daddy went complete cuckoo.)

Don’t wanna spoil it for you fellas, check it out here:
http://www.infoproductu.com/Superstar/

All the best to you, Joe. Never felt so good giving someone a little plug in my blog. Nicely done.

Namaste.

Google has come up with Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com. It still says “beta” but I bet you it’s here to stay.

Don’t know why it took them so long…