In several of the previous articles, we've identified several of the marketing problems you may have been facing, and explained how and why those problems exist. We've talked about the history of advertising, the era of brand the brand builders, platitudes, and the confidence gap. Now I want to take you by the hand and show you how you're marketing is really supposed to work. The solution to these problems can be found in what I call the marketing equation. It's the backbone of the Monopolize Your Marketplace System...and your strategic marketing plan.
The Marketing Equation has four main components. They are:
- First, Interrupt: This is simply the process of getting qualified prospects to pay attention to your marketing. Simple enough to say, a lot more difficult to pull of in real life, unless you understand what you're about to learn here in this article.
- The second component is Engage: Once the prospect is Interrupted, it's critical to give the reader the promise that information is forthcoming that will help the prospect make the best decision possible.
- The third component is Educate: Once you've Interrupted and Engaged the prospect, you have to give information that allows them to logically understand how and why you solve that problem. This is accomplished by giving detailed, quantifiable, specific, inside-reality-revealing information. This turns the corner from an "emotional" sell--you interrupted and engaged based on emotional HOT BUTTONS--to a "logical" sell.
- The fourth component of the marketing equation is the Offer: The last step is to give the prospect a low-risk way to take the next step in the sales process. This is done by offering a free marketing tool such as a report, brochure, seminar, audio, video or something to Educate even more to allow the prospect to feel in control of the final decision.
Let's start with the first component of the marketing equation, Interrupt. This is probably the most obvious component in the equation, yet it's almost always done WRONG. I've told you multiple times in previous articles that everything you've ever learned about marketing and advertising is WRONG. And this is one of the major areas of false doctrine that you're going to have to un-learn if you want to start maximizing your return on marketing investment.
Big companies and their Madison Avenue ad agencies like to fancy themselves as the masters of the interruption. We've all seen the Budweiser frogs and lizards and the Whasssuuuup! Guys, right? Pepsi does a good job of getting us interrupted by showing Britney Spears practically naked. Before that it was Michael Jackson with his hair on fire. Mr. Whipple used to tell us not to squeeze the Charmin and an old lady used to ask "Where's the Beef?" They even call this "interruption" advertising...which is explicitly designed to interrupt us while we're doing something else and get us to take a look at what they have to say. I'm not saying those techniques flat-out don't work, and that there's no value in using them. I will step out on a limb and say good luck if you don't have at least $100 million to roll it out with. But trust me, there's a big difference between interrupting somebody and SELLING something.
The big agency formula is C & R, which stands for creativity and repetition. The formula is not designed to sell anything, it's designed to interrupt and then engrave that image into your mind. So I've told you that the true formula is interrupt, engage, educate, and offer. The big agencies would tell you that the formula is interrupt and engrave, interrupt and engrave. Problem is, that in today's confidence gap cluttered environment, engrave isn't good enough. Engraving a message on people's brain's increases the ad agencies holy grail, what they call "awareness," meaning, what percentage of people are aware of the product or the company. Awareness is fine, but our holy grail is sales and profits. Big difference.
I'm not the first person to ever point out that there's a problem with traditional interrupt advertising and marketing. In fact, quite the contrary. There are so many stupid, non-effective advertisements out there lately that the creatives have been taking a beating from several fronts. There are several creative-haters out there--some of them big time industry gurus. Donald Deustch, a former Big Agency, big shot who sold out his agency for hundreds of millions of dollars and smart-bombed the industry in a speech in front of advertising agency heads and corporate marketing executives, saying that "creative mediocrity" is the problem and that companies shouldn't tolerate the garbage that's being churned out by what he termed "creative retards." Donald's solution is to have better creative people with more business sense.
Al Ries, author of some of the most popular big-company-style marketing books such as 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and Marketing Warfare has a relatively new book called "The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR" where he talks about many of the same marketing problems I've mentioned in previous articles. His solution to the problem is to use Public Relations to promote products and services. Seth Godin has made a name for himself with books like Permission Marketing and Unleashing The Idea Virus that proclaim that mass media advertising is dead and now companies have got to find a way to get the customers to willingly accept advertisements via email to make an impact. Sergio Zyman, the former Chief Marketing Officer for Coca-Cola and author of the book "The End of Advertising As We Know It" makes a very plain case for the fact that this crap just ain't working any more. But like Donald Deustch, Zyman only leaves a cryptic solution that roughly reads like this: "make sure you do it better - when you do it - so that it makes you money."
Let me be very direct with you here. The marketing equation goes like this: Interrupt, engage, educate, and offer. Ad agencies use the formula C & R which translates into interrupt and engrave. That formula is outdated and WRONG. Donald Duestch & Sergio Zyman say use the C & R formula, just do it better. Well, that's a good start, and I certainly like their passion, but how do you actually do it, Don and Serge? They might very well know, but they certainly don't know how to teach you. Al Ries says, "no, the formula is not C & R, it's Public Relations, or PR for short." But that's not accurate either. PR is a valuable tool, certainly one to be studied and implemented and benefited from. But see, Al Ries is saying that since traditional interrupt advertising isn't working, that therefore it can't work, and it won't work. That is a lie, and it's dangerous for you to believe it. The answer to these problems is not to conclude that because classic interrupt advertising is not working that therefore it can't work. I am giving you the formula here that has always worked, that still works now, and that will continue to work for the next 5,000 years. It's interrupt, engage, educate, and offer. I didn't invent this formula, it's been around forever. Some of the early pioneers in advertising understood it and used it very profitably. But it's been gone from the face of the planet earth for over 50 years now and we're finally the ones to RESTORE it.
Seth Godin says since traditional interrupt advertising doesn't work, that advertising should be totally abandoned in favor of Email Marketing. That's like concluding that because airlines are frequently delayed and flights run late, we should seek out alternate forms of transportation to get from Los Angeles to New York , like taking a train, driving, or riding a bike. I agree that email marketing can play an important role in a marketing program. But this is not an either / or game we're playing here. All these other jackals are throwing up the white flag and saying because it doesn't work like it used to it can't work and it won't work. But again, realize, that is a lie. Don't believe it, don't believe it for one second. Believing those philosophies will have a devastating impact on your business.
PR & Email, and other marketing strategies have and will continue to have their place. But get this straight right now: none of those things will EVER, EVER replace traditional interrupt marketing and advertising. Advertising will always be a part of the equation during your lifetime. TV isn't going away. Magazines aren't going away. Radio isn't going away. Newspapers aren't going away. And if they do, they will be replaced by different media, not by a different incarnation of communication altogether. Look at the internet. The greatest marketing revolutionizing tool ever that is going to sap everyone from their televisions and render the newspaper useless. Yea right. Now we get commercials, pop ups, emails, banner ads, and the same old stupid stuff; now we just get it when we're online in addition to when we're sitting in front of the tube.
The trick here isn't to find a different way to communicate like Al Reis and Seth Godin say, or to try harder with the outmoded C & R formula like Sergio Zyman and Donald Duetch say. The trick is to learn the true principles of marketing that have always worked and will always continue to work and use them within the existing marketing and advertising infrastructure. You have to understand the principles.
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