The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [84]
If your product is shaving cream, you can use the headline, “The five things you’d better know about shaving and how many different ways it affects your body.” Plus, you can include tips on how to shave, the best ways to shave, and what every kid should know when it’s time to shave. Cover topics such as the structure of various shaving creams and the impact that shaving has on your skin. You could even give the history of shaving. When did it start? How did it start? Who started it?
Get this: if you offer all this advice and plug that Web site every where you’re already promoting your product, the site becomes an information source that folks are going to send other folks to in order to get this information. So information-based marketing accelerates your reach and increases word-of-mouth advertising. This is the Information Age, for Pete’s sake, so provide as much as you can.
This can get more interesting if your product or ser vice is more interesting, but every product or ser vice can create a community—even bottled water or shaving cream. And I could go on with a chapter of ideas to expand on the concept, but you’ll do it yourself as you start down the path. Just think of your Web site as a community. Focus on it, not on you, and look to get involved with and serve that community at every turn.
A good consumer example of a Web site that builds community is Stonyfield Farms, producer of organic dairy products (yogurt, milk, etc.). Their Web site offers terrific information on organic foods and how to help protect the Earth. They also provide recipes and a multitude of other information on wellness. One thing they could do to improve their community is to prominently promote a subscriber program. As of this writing, they have no easy-to-find newsletter or other subscription opportunity that would tie them closer to the consumer. If they sent some of their articles directly to consumers, those consumers might forward them to friends and family, thereby using the Internet as a vehicle to dramatically enhance or increase Stonyfield’s word-of-mouth marketing.
There are mistakes that some folks will make, for sure. After I teach this material, I’ll sometimes stumble on someone who has heard the concepts and liked them a lot but, in the execution, lost the real message. I will see students of this concept come out with “five reasons why our product is better than anyone else’s.” Who is that focused on? Who cares about your five reasons? What I care about is what five things I need to learn that will serve me. And then, once I’m into that education, make it a good one. And then somewhere along the line, you can use your product or ser vice as an example, and that is where you get to promote your product—but always from the perspective of “what’s in it for the client.”
Conclusion
The key for all of these marketing weapons is that they work together. Have a meeting once per month in which you look at each of your Seven Musts of Marketing and see how you can make them all work together more effectively. Are your articles on your Web site? Do your salespeople use your articles? Does your advertising also drive leads to the Web community you’ve built? Are you promoting referrals at every turn? Is your sales staff offering free education? Make it all work together.
Here is the list of the Seven Musts at a glance:
Advertising
Direct mail
Corporate literature: brochures, promotional pieces
Public relations
Personal contact: salespeople, customer ser vice reps
Market education: trade shows, speaking engagements, Chet-style marketing efforts as described in Chapter Six
Internet: your Web sites, email efforts, and affiliate marketing
The Eyes Have It