-blog-
-blog-
-blog-
-blog-
-blog-
-blog-

Fun Facts Friday

May 07, 2010 9:04 A.M.
Port Moody BC

Howdy,

Stole some fun facts for you today… courtesy of www.specializedmailing.com.

I figure a quick plug for them on my blog here would justify the swipe.

And I have no problem with promoting them either. Out of all the vendors at Glazer-Kennedy SuperConference 2010, they were one of three exhibitors that got me e-x-c-i-t-e-d.

What do they do that’s so cool?

  1. Tear sheets – (i.e. fake newspaper clippings) – If you don’t know what these are… you essentially pay a copywriter (preferably me) to write a “news article” about your product, service or company… then have it printed like it was teared out of a newspaper or magazine.

    Send it to the prospect, they think it’s real, builds up your credibility… voila! More business.

  2. Post-It Notes – always adds an element of personalization when a direct mail piece has a post-it note on it… and finally… coolest of all…

  3. Handwritten Direct Mail service! No, not some cheesy font that “looks” like someone hand wrote the address… most people are smart enough to figure those out… No, what you have here is a genuinely, authentic hand-written address on as many envelops as you’d like.

    As anyone who uses direct mail knows… getting the letter OPENED is the first hurdle (and a HUGE one, at that).

    So tell me, would you seriously throw away a letter that came to you… with your name and address handwritten on the envelop… with a real, live stamp?

    Absolutely not. You’d open it.

Call Alice Mishica at Specialized Mailing Services, Inc. here: 714-274-2284

End plug.

Now for the “fun facts” sheet I stole from their marketing package.

USPS Facts About Baby Boomers

  • 95% of Boomer sort their mail the same day
  • 79% retrieve their mail the same day it’s received
  • 50% say they look forward to discovering mail each day
  • 72% of Boomers worry about providing personal information on-line

Did you get that? Seventy-Two Percent! If you’re selling to boomers, and you’re strictly online, you are losing nearly 72% of business by not going offline!

Okay. What About The Rest?

  • 98% of consumers bring in their mail the day it’s delivered, of these, 90% of them will determine which mail is kept for review

    (Gary Halbert’s A pile, B pile lives on…)

  • 56% say receiving direct mail is an adventure

    (I know I do… I’m glad I’m not a minority)

  • 77% of non-customers report that direct mail was what drove them to complete a credit card application on line

    (I’ve fallen for these… more than once… MBNA with their 0% APR and their low, low transfer fees!)

  • 73% of Gen Y and 68% of Gen X retail direct mail readers have used coupons in the mail

    (huh. Weird. The younger crowd uses more direct mail than the Gen X’ers.)

Integrated Marketing
Or… Some Fancy Schmancy Way
To Say “I Use More Than One
Form of Media To Market”

Who comes up with these terms anyway? Integrated Marketing. University professors, I bet.

Anyway…

You’ll love this (or kick yourself after reading it… if you’re not using “integrated marketing”)…

People that received mail made:

  • 16% more website visits
  • Viewed 22% more pages
  • Spent 15% more time at the site

There you have it. People coming from offline to website DO MORE.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

6 responses so far

Answers from Dallas, Texas

May 03, 2010 10:53 A.M.
Port Moody BC

Alright. Back from Dallas. Hate to sound like a whinger… but I got jet lag from the two hour difference. (whine whine whine).

Before leaving on the trip, I asked my e-mail list what they wanted me to pay extra-close attention to… and take extra-careful notes on.

Here are three questions (and three answers).

Video Sales Letters

Q: Jeff Fatherree from TX and John Reyes from MA both wanted to know more about video sales letters. John specifically wanted to know what’s up with the 20-45 minute ones that auto-play and have no controls for you to fast forward.

A: Russell Brunson revealed… Yes. They work. It makes absolutely no sense… everyone (seemingly) HATES them (myself included)… but in test after test after test… conversions are higher. Counter-Intuitive.

On that note… by the way… I don’t care what you’re selling, I’m not buying from you if you do that. So I’m a bad case study for this.

Joan Rivers

Q: Tobius Holmes from BC wanted to know what Joan Rivers had to say.

A: If I had to break down her 60 minutes of gut-splitting, laugh-out-loud speech down to its bare essence… it would be “do whatever it takes to get what you want”… and related, “nothing is beneath you”. Here is, after all, a woman who rebuilt her career on Hollywood Squares!

But her biggest revelation to the crowd, (in my opinion), is… “If you can laugh at it, you own it”. So regardless of the situation you’re in right now… if you’re struggling to succeed, if you can laugh at it… you OWN it.

Productivity

Q: Gina Nero from CT wants more productivity boosting secrets.

A: Lee Milteer had plenty. :)

Biggest takeaway: It’s not that you have a lack of time. That’s not your problem. It’s because you lack integrity and awareness of time.

BIG NOTE: When you “protect” your time, you are considered “selfish”.

However… Lee says something very insightful, “You cannot intelligently operate in an environment of constant unrelenting communication”.

In other words, unhook the phone, turn off Twitter, Facebook… heck, disconnect the Internet, lock the office door… and just WORK. Furthermore… all future appointments (phone, in person or otherwise) must ALL be booked in advance with a time limit set in place.

There’s more in my pages of notes… much more… and if you’re an e-mail subscriber, you will have access to it. (Soon. I came home to a big inbox of WORK).

Bonus Question

Q: Courtney Houde from ONT asks… “How’s the weather? I’m flying down to Austin for business next week.”

A: I walked around downtown in a polo shirt on my first night there. This is a far (FAR) cry from the rain I left home in Vancouver… and subsequently… the same rain I got when I RETURNED home.

(whine whine whine).

THOUGHT: I’ve been inspired to blog more… but in order for me to do that… I’m going to write more and more in a “clipped” manner with gems of information… as opposed to over straining myself to present excellent prose.

Positive: You get more good stuff as it pours out of my head
Negative: It’s not indicative of my “writing ability”… but more my “marketing mindset”. (Wait… that’s a positive, too… isn’t it?)

Well, ultimately, it will be more “Stream of Consciousness-ish-ness”.

This may or may not turn out well. I’ll let you decide. If you don’t like it, you can always unsubscribe.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

8 responses so far

My Infatuation with Facts & Figures

March 22, 2010 11:13 A.M.
Port Moody BC

I love statistics. And to get my fix of facts and figures, I recently subscribed to The Daily Stat, put out by Harvard Business Review.

I just went through the last three months worth of archives and I thought you’d be interested in the sales and marketing ones…

Don’t think I need to add further comment here. If you don’t have an auto-responder follow-up series as part of your e-mail marketing campaign… you are losing sales. You may have heard the worn-out maxim: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.

In fact, the National Sales Executive Association put together a study recently and this is what they discovered:

  • 2% of sales are made on the 1st contact
  • 3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact
  • 5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact
  • 10% of sales are made on the 4th contact
  • 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact

And I’ll bet you, those 9% of companies, if they’re practicing the principles of direct marketing… will come out on top by year end.

Gee, our salesmen aren’t making quota… let’s give them fewer and lower quality leads. That’s a winning strategy. :/

Do more with less ONLY works when the “less” is of a higher quality, folks. Ugh.

What caught my attention was the last sentence. Read that again. FOURTEEN fricken’ memberships and clubs… and they don’t even do anything all that special. You get points when you buy stuff. That seems to be the majority of those “memberships”.

You can do better. MUCH better. Do you have a continuity membership program in your business, yet? All it takes to be different here is add a fun and interesting monthly newsletter.

Did you hear that? 75% of people still read the NEWSPAPERS!!! I’ll bet you most marketers are completely ignoring this medium… and the newspapers are DESPERATE to get your advertising dollars… desperate enough to give you a severe discount if you play hardball? :)

Wasn’t that fun?

You should subscribe to The Daily Stat too. Click here to add it to your RSS

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

4 responses so far

A Sneaky Marketing “Mind Reading” Trick Using Amazon

March 05, 2010 10:31 AM
Port Moody, BC

Dear Friend,

I know, I know. I haven’t blogged for a while. In my defense, I’m in the middle of four projects simultaneously. Last time I got so busy, I copped out with a David Ogilvy video. It got some positive feedback. Let’s go for a repeat performance.

Here’s a little known video of Jay Abraham revealing how you can spy into the hearts and minds of your prospects. Very, very sneaky… and powerful.

I wish I had a blog post up my sleeve instead of sharing this… it’s one of my “hidden ace cards” when I do market research for clients. My (tremendous) loss, your exponential gain.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

P.S. Since I’m abusing five dollar words a la classic Jay already (e.g. “tremendous” and “exponential”)… allow me to express how this wildly profitable technique will kaleidoscopically expand your understanding of your target market . Parenthetically, if you’re unaware of Mr. Abraham’s work, I strongly suggest you peruse his publications at your local book store.

P.P.S. Sorry about that. Couldn’t help myself.

3 responses so far

Become Your Own Big Brother And Increase Productivity Threefold

February 22, 2010 6:32 AM
Port Moody, BC

It’s come to this. George Orwell’s 1984.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about my computer activity. Let me start with a story.

Big Brother Is Watching You

Back in my corporate life, we used a software program called “Witness” on customer support computers (friendly name, isn’t it?). What this program did was randomly videotape one hour of your computer activity during your shift.

The purpose of this recording was for quality control. Just like how, (when you call a company), you’d hear, “This phone call may be taped for quality purposes.”

What supervisors would do then, is pull up these recordings, look for a case the customer support representative (CSR) worked on… and grade them based on whether they followed procedure and policy, or not.

No problem so far, right?

In fact, the internal marketing consisted of how we’d make our low performing CSRs better by pointing out holes in their workflow… and for the high performing CSRs, we’d take their best recordings and use them as shining examples of excellence during team meetings.

Right. As easy as convincing a ten-year-old the tooth fairy is real.

The CSRs were up in arms, of course.

The inevitable “side effect” of the software was that it showed us how much people spent time MSN’ing their friends, checking personal e-mail, surfing the Internet and hanging out on MySpace. (This was before Facebook exploded).

It’s serious stuff. In fact, some of the supervisors were asked to sign disclaimers, promising to never reveal what we discovered. And I’ll tell you. Some of us ended up finding out way more than we wanted to about the people reporting to us. (Way more).

Now here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn.

Five Years Later

A week and a half ago, I essentially installed similar software on my own computer!

Insane, right?

It’s not, though. And I think business owners and entrepreneurs reading this will agree.

The toughest part of becoming your own boss is realizing how much you suck at managing yourself.

Demons come crawling out of the woodwork.

You get lenient on yourself. Your work-at-home schedule becomes a stay-at-home vacation. The Internet turns into a highly addictive opium den of distractions.

So in my journey as a business owner, it’s come to the point where the “boss me” is laying the smack down on the “worker me”. Shape up or ship out.

Since installing self-monitoring software, my productivity has jumped (by my rough estimates) at least threefold.

Interested? I’ll tell you what I did. Best part, it’s 100% free.

How to 1984 Yourself

There are three pieces of software you’ll need to download. LeechBlock, RescueTime and Freedom.

  1. LeechBlock (http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock.html) : This program blocks online access to websites of your choosing based on time during the day and/or time limits.

    So for me, here’s how I’ve set it up:

    My biggest productivity killers are shopping sites and personal e-mail. So, Gmail, Amazon, eBay & Alibris are blocked off completely Mondays to Thursdays, and Saturdays. (Saturdays because I’m forcing myself to be Internet-Free at least one day a week). On Fridays and Sundays, I’ve limit it to 45 minutes max.

    RESULT? I’m so overwhelmed by the e-mails in my inbox on Friday, I ruthlessly delete, filter and unsubscribe from lists. It’s great on the expense budget too. I’m not considering every product offer marketers send out. (I’ve got 45 minutes, man. Make your pitch and get out.)

    Next, I’ve blocked out all social media (FaceBook and Twitter) from 7AM to 5PM, then 8PM to 12AM. Between five and eight in the evening, I get 15 minutes.

    RESULTS: First of all, I’m not checking out Twitter in between every page of copy I write anymore. Secondly, I’m not checking out every link in the tweet-verse when my 15 minute window does open up. I skim. Fast. I get updated and move on.

  2. RescueTime (http://www.rescuetime.com/) – This program times your computer activity based on what program or website you’re on. When you’re ready to face to music, you go to the website, log in and see what you’ve spent your time on.

    You can mark each activity on a scale of -2 to +2 in terms of productivity. Then it draws pretty graphs for you. The more red you see, the more likely you should fire yourself.

    Fortunately, my graphs look great, but that’s because of the way I set up LeechBlock first. I don’t dare turn off LeechBlock and see what my ResecueTime graphs would look like.

    What’s a great ego-boost (or downer) for RescueTime is it ranks you against other users. My score last week was 1.06 productivity (in the top 13%), versus 0.23 productivity for the average RescueTime user.

    Let me show you my graph:

    Pretty cool, right?

  3. Freedom (http://macfreedom.com/) – This program (for Macs only, I’m afraid), knocks out your Internet access completely for a set amount of time. You turn it on, tell it how long, and unless the time runs out… or you restart your computer, you can’t get online.

    Result? I haven’t used this program much. The 80/20 rule kicked in as soon as I turned on LeechBlock. I realized already I spent 80% of online time on 20% of websites visited… and I blocked those websites. So it wasn’t necessary to kill the Internet off completely. But I bring this software up for you if, for some reason, the 80/20 rule doesn’t apply to your surfing habits.

And there you have it.

Successful self-employment: Become that jerk of a boss you hated back in the job world… on yourself.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

6 responses so far

Lessons From 35,000 Feet Above The State of California

January 28, 2010 2:07 PM
35,000 ft. above CA

Dear Friend,

The lesson? There isn’t one.

Well, maybe there is. You see, at the beginning of every blog entry, I like to list where I’m at and timestamp it. So, since this is the first post to be NOT Port Moody, and furthermore… as interesting a hook as 35,000 feet up in the air… I felt compelled to write something, anything… just so I can take advantage of it.

Problem is… I can’t think of anything insightful, interesting or relevant to say!

I mean, I could write how the difference between first class and coach are next to nil… and how you, too, should have a premium service, just to create an “exclusive membership” client list… with advantages offered at a much higher price…

I could write about Apolo Ohno, the speed skater. Alaska Airlines slapped his likeness on the rudder of every single one of their fleet. It took me a while to figure out who the heck he was. (They reveal his identity in the airline magazine. I had to hunt for it. Stupid.) However, a excellent use of a celebrity endorsement… and tie-in with an international event like the winter Olympics… once you find the article.

I could write about how banning smoking in-flight has actually made the cabin a much more dangerous and hazardous place for passenger health and safety…

But alas, I can’t, because… oh wait! I guess I do have insights after all. (It’s amazing what happens when you just put pen to paper and START writing.)

OK. The ORIGINAL direction I was going with this when I first started writing is this…

Great Hooks Do Not
Great Ads Make

I’m a above-average clever guy, I’ll admit. In fact, wit and sarcasm was my defense mechanism during my teenage years… And, let’s face it… finding a great hook for your advertising requires keen, mental dexterity…

HOWEVER… it can be a dangerous path to follow when you find a brilliant hook and try and force it to “FIT” the rest of your ad… or in my case, a blog.

Great hooks should ignite curiosity, yes, but also promise a benefit. It’s when you use a hook for a hook’s sake that gets you in trouble.

While cracking the spine of The Robert Collier Letter Book (finally) at SEA-TAC… I can’t help but relish in his opening analogy of the “sportsman” with every piscatorial lure known to man — and can’t catch a darned fish… while the grubby, little boy next to him is reeling in one after another.

Which is to say…

The most beautiful hook in the world ain’t gonna covert your readers into buyers… unless it’s something they want!

OK… I get it. It’s ironic. Here I am, damning the use of irrelevant hooks and I got you reading with the “35,000 feet above” line.

Ah well…

Must Be The Recirculated Air

Which… by the way, is why airplane cabins today are much more hazardous to our health than when smoking was allowed.

I forget where I read it (Maybe Dan Kennedy or Bottomline Secrets)… but story goes… when they banned smoking years ago, all the airlines said, “well, since the air isn’t so clogged up with second-hand smoke now, let’s save money by installing fewer filters that let in fresh air and just re-circulate more of what’s already there.”

Great.

So, if anybody on your flight has a cold or flu or any airborne virus… it just goes ’round and ’round and ’round the claustrophobic cabin.

Maybe that’s why flight attendants have one of the highest number of sick days compared to other jobs? Maybe?

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

One response so far

We Sell Or Else

January 21st, 2010 3:27 PM
Port Moody BC

Dear Friend,

I’m too lazy to write a blog today, I’m up to my eyeballs in research for a new client. I won’t say who… but I’ll tell you this: I’ll know more about make-up than most men (and maybe even women) by the end of this week.

With that said, I have a video for you instead. Here is the man himself, Mr. David Ogilvy talking about the kind of advertising that makes money. (You guessed it, direct response advertising.)

Too bad the “ignorant” (general advertising agencies) are still rulers of the land. :(

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

2 responses so far

On Turning 29…
Or, The First Year of Freelancing

January 11th, 2010 1:25 A.M.
Port Moody, BC Canada

Dear Friend,

Yesterday, I turned twenty-nine unceremoniously — spent the Sunday sleeping in, vacuuming the house and getting groceries. It was my kind of birthday. Quiet. Insignificant.

As I write this, my family is asleep and I’m seizing what solitude I can to reflect on this past year. 2009, after all, was the year I dove into freelancing.

And… heh… let’s just say I was forced to learn a few business lessons, quickly.

Funny thing is — it’s nothing new. It’s the sort of stuff you read in books and hear on CDs… if you’re a self-help junkie like me. It just becomes “solid” when it really happens to you.

So here are three things I’d like to share.

1. Perfectionism Is The Enemy Of Progress

Gone are the days of an organized desk and filing system. First thing to go.

Business is messy, and anyone who tells you different isn’t focused on the one thing that matters: selling. And when you’re marketing and chasing down leads… the last thing on your mind is a clean office.

I’ve found… when I’m cleaning or doing busy work, I’m really putting off doing something more important and vital in my life. I take pride in clutter now. It means I invested time in higher-return activities.

2. You Don’t Know What’s Good
For You Until You’ve Been Through
What’s Bad For You

I’ve had my share of battle scars this past year. I’m happy to show them off, too. I don’t think you’re a real freelance copywriter until the following happens to you…

  • A client refuses to pay or takes tons of follow-up to.
  • You slave over a piece of copy and they don’t run it.
  • Or, they do run it but don’t drive traffic to it.
  • Or, they run it (after making changes to it).

I’m not super mad about these things (except the first one)… it was expected/unexpected.

Let me explain that. It was expected because I’ve read enough about this life before diving in… it was unexpected when it finally does happen to you personally.

My good friend, Gurm Sohal (an excellent international wedding photographer)… we lunch every month or so to chat about movies and… trade war stories. We struck out on self-employment head-first about the same time… and the first point (even though we knew about it going in) still surprised us.

It’s what happens to you when you work at a job for so long. You get used to having cheques deposited into your bank account by a responsible employer.

As for the other three points… it’s business. I write for money, not art. (Don’t ever ask my friend Julie Ruffell about the time she sent in a Star Trek: Voyager script… I’m sure she’ll comment about it below regardless.)

Such is the freelancer life. I’m glad I went through it so quickly and early in my career. A splash of cold reality never hurt anyone.

QUICK NOTE: Oh and one last point, I don’t think you can properly call yourself a writer until you know what medicinal qualities shark liver oil has.

3. It’s Not About
The Money Anymore

… In reference to entertainment, that is.

I remember fifteen years ago, I worked at a McDonald’s that was across the street from an A&B Sound. Nearly every day after my shift… I’d dangerously jaywalk across Hastings . (This was near Cassiar — previously Western Canada’s most accident prone intersection).

It was with sheer delight I purchased a CD two, three times a week.

Teenagers have time to listen to music, watch depressing movies… and spend all-nighters talking about them.

Theses days, I have “There Will Be Blood” sitting on my PVR after a whole year. A borrowed copy of “Angels in America” on DVD unwatched after three years.

I know they’re good movies… and my life will be better for it, and richer, and blah blah blah. But they’re serious and will make me think. I spent the whole day doing that with client work. I’d rather watch a rerun of Friends or How I Met Your Mother now.

Which goes back to the point… It’s not about the money anymore.

Yes, I can walk into Futureshop or HMV and pick up a copy of Mad Men, or the last season of Battlestar Galactica, or any Criterion disc. Money’s not the issue here.

It’s time. If I buy DVDs, I’ll have to watch them.

Which leads to my recent presents from Queenie. She had no idea what to get me for Christmas, our First Date Anniversary and Birthday these past two weeks. (Yeah, it sucks to be married to me. You have to buy me three gifts within a two-week period at the end of each year.)

I don’t have need for more books, DVDs, gadgets, clothes… nothing material. All I really want is time.

So finally, I said… “Just give me money.”

Now, before you go and sarcastically say, “Wow, Mr. Romantic .” Wait for my next sentence.

I continued, “I’ll stick it in a high interest bank account and use it for vacations. The best gift you can give me is a trip somewhere — where I can forget about work and just focus on you and Cedrik.”

When I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad seven years ago, the biggest takeaway I got from it was that the one true commodity in this world wasn’t money… it’s time.

Like the expected/unexpected trade-offs of self-employment… I didn’t fully realize the impact of it until this past year.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

8 responses so far

Falling Trees — If An Ad Gets Sent Out And No One Sees It…

July 2nd, 2009 12:55 AM
Port Moody BC

Dear Friend,

I think about ad traffic. A lot.

How people find you. How you control who finds you.

It’s important to me. As a copywriter, the ads I write are like proverbial falling trees.

You know…

“If a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Yes, yes, we all know they physically make a sound. The philosophical issue here is whether or not they impact the world if no one is around to hear them fall.

The analogy stands. If no one sees my ad, it won’t make any sales and I will have toiled over the copy for nothing.

Enlightened copywriters have the guts to tell clients copy won’t save their business. Reasons could be their offer isn’t compelling enough, they don’t have a traffic plan or in some cases, both.

So let’s get back to traffic. It’s overwhelming when you think about it. The sheer number of options out there.

Joint venture partners, affiliates, friend and family referrals, Yellow Pages, trade directories, web directories, partner links pages, search engines, pay-per-click, cost-per-action, mailing lists, compiled lists, customer lists, e-mail lists, subscriber lists, house lists, newspaper ads, magazine ads, endorsed mailings, television commercials, radio spots, bus shelter ads, subway ads, billboards…

Shall I stop?

After a lot of pondering, I’ve figured it out.

It really boils down to five types of traffic. That’s it.

Once You Start Thinking This Way,
Deciding Where And How To Send Out Your Message
Becomes Infinitely Easier

It also helps to know you can rank all five types by “buyer engagement”.

Let me explain.

No matter what you sell, people experience a “process” before they plunk down money.

The question is, where does your product “fit” in that process?

  • RECOGNITION – Do your prospects know they have a problem? Can they articulate exactly what they’re going through? Or do you have to “create a need” for your product? Educate them?

  • RESEARCH – If your prospect can identify their problem, and name it… are they aware of the solutions available to them? Or are they actively seeking out information — in “research mode”, so to speak?

  • REFINE – Let’s say they narrowed their options down. They’re deciding now. Is your product uniquely positioned to the point where they’re comparing apples to oranges? Or is your product simply bigger, louder or cheaper?

There’s nothing wrong with that. You may be in a commodity market where “bigger, louder and cheaper” is all you got. (Most of the time, there are ways around this, but that’s for another time.)

Let’s get back on track.

How do you know where your product fits in the process? Here’s my yardstick…

The More Complex And Intangible Your Product…
The Further Back In The Buyer Process You Have To Market To

Let’s say you’re a doctor or consultant. Your product is advice.

Chances are, your prospects have no idea what their problem is exactly. They just know it hurts like heck and they need to fix it. So you have to identify their problem in your advertising, (or prove you can identify it.)

If you’re a caterer, electrician or plumber, your prospects know what their problem is (hungry guests, black outs, clogged toilet). Your advertising needs to educate them on how and why your service solves their problem.

Or maybe you sell furniture, coffee or clothing.

In this case, your advertising’s job is to create value via positioning. I’m not talking about brand here. Brand is a part of it, but more importantly, how do you add “experiential” value to your product?

Do you “bundle” the product with services (or vice versa)? Do you evoke a story they can identify with?

See how that works?

That’s why — when you sell complicated, intangible products (e.g. information and services), your marketing funnel needs to be multi-step.

Not only do you have to identify problems, you ALSO have to educate and build value.

Also — if you sell “commodities”, by adding services or story, you’ve essentially created a “new product” in which you have to step backwards and educate your market.

Take Starbucks for example. Before they came along, we were happy with 85 cent coffee.

They made it “gourmet” and they had to educate us on “real, Italian coffee” before charging us the outrageous amounts we happily pay every single morning. And afternoon. And evening.

Anyhoo… I’ve meandered off talking about “buyer process” and I still haven’t revealed the five types of traffic. We’re out of time, unfortunately. You’ll have to wait until the next entry.

Sincerely,
Colin's John Hancock
Colin Y.J. Chung

6 responses so far

Snarling Writer Inner Salesman Skeptical Prospect
Copyright © 2008 - 2010 ORSIK Publications & Colin Y.J. Chung. All Rights Reserved.
Legal Information - Earnings Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Terms of Use