The Marketing Message Blog

Visual Thinkers—This Means YOU!

Visual thinking, has been quitely sweeping through the halls of business picking up converts.  As a devoted Mind Mapper and visual thinking evangelist I was thrilled when Dan Roam's new book "Back of the Napkin" was released.  Many people profess to lack artistic skills and shy away from this topic.  But artistic skill is not what visual thinking is about.

Thanks to Elizabeth Marshall's AuthorTeleseminars.com you can hear Dan Roam discuss his book with thought leaders Seth Godin, Anil Dash and Rich Sloan.  You can't afford to miss this recording.  It will make you more valuable to employers, your own business and others.

Sign up for the next stop on my virtual book tour!

The next stop on my virtual book tour for Web Marketing for Small Businesses will be May 15th at 3pm

I'm excited that two great experts will be joining me:

Andy Wibbels, author of Blogwild! and Marketing Manager with Six Apart

Roger C. Parker, bestselling author and founder of Published and Profitable

Learn more here and sign up for this Free call with me and Andy Wibbels and Roger Parker

Listen to my call with Michael Port

I'm really excited to let you know that my new book launch starts tomorrow with a kick-off call with the great Michael Port.  He's the author of Booked Solid and Beyond Booked Solid. I'm really excited to speak to Michael about my book Web Marketing for Small Businesses. He's helped so many people with his "Think Big" revolution.

We'll be talking about how to:

-design your website so that it's easy for customers to buy

-tell a compelling story, so that visitors become subscribers

-choose the right tactics and tools for marketing on the web

->use the four key questions to build a successful and effective website

Repeat after me, not everyone is your customer

Much as I wish I could agree with the idea that everyone is a potential customer, I can't.  If you target everyone, you are targeting no one.  What the web 2.0 era has ushered in, is the ability to target customers more effectively. 

The niche is everything.  You need to speak to a constituency and meet their needs.  Why care?  You need to know what bloggers they read, what information sources they like and how and where they receive information.  If you think you know that intuitively, forget the Web and open a fortune-telling booth.

To this end, check out Newt Barrett's blog Succeeding Today for this post on market research: Doing Market Research Is Both Easier and More Important Than You May Think  In it, he writes about how you can make an inexpensive effort with a big payoff.  He outlines options and costs.  It's a must read for those of you who think you can't do market research.

New Product Strategies: Opportunity May be Knocking

I am currently reading Hot Button Marketing by Barry Feig. (See reading list.) It provides lots of great insights about what really makes people buy.  While reading this, I came across his article, "Getting to NO: Listen closely when consumers reject your product and you could hear opportunity knocking."  It discusses how to approach the development of your marketing message so that buyers get past the emotional component to really see the product's value. 

He recounts how the Glad Lock Bag seal (yellow and blue strip becomes green)  was rejected by focus group after focus group because the consumer thought she was being 'taken for a dolt.'  They repositioned the message and had a big hit on their hands. 

One response to heavy negative feedback could have been to scrap the seal or not focus on it.  As you can see, this would have been a huge mistake.  Instead they crafted the message based on the consumer's perception.  This illustrates a really key point for small businesses.  Start with the customers perception of your product and build your marketing message from there.  Don't assume you know how your product will be pereceived without asking.

Technorati tags: marketing new+product+strategies marketing+messages

7 Things Business Owners Want Most

There is an insightful article written by Kim Gordon, called Hit the Sweet Spot in the July 2006 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine.  It's about the 7 things business owners want most.  If you analyze the list, you'll see that it focuses on the psychological needs business owners must satisfy when making a purchase.  If you are marketing to small business owners, this list can really help you focus your next sales campaign.

Naturally, 'increased sales' comes in at number 1.  But looking at some of the other things like 'ways to save money' and 'safe choices' are critically important when you are developing your offer.

We've all seen offers that include 'free mega-bonuses' for purchasing.  Intuitively we know that these bonuses are worth what you pay for them—nothing.  Yet they speak to the business owner's need to save money or perhaps 'get something for nothing.'  Don't overlook this when creating your offer.

Technorati tags: small+business entrepreneur offer marketing sell

Can Your Customer Be Tempted?

Andy Raskin reports in Business 2.0 Magazine about a study done at the University of Iowa to determine how people make decisions.  The study asked the first group to memorize a two digit number; the second group a seven digit one.  Right before he asked them to recall the number, he offered them a snack of fruit salad or chocolate cake.

Intuitively, I'm sure you can guess what happened.  63% of the subjects who were required to remember the seven digit number chose the cake compared to 41% in the two digit number group. Several more studies of this type have been conducted which yielded similar results.

This tells us something we already know about marketing messages, but rarely pay attention to.  People who have to make stressful buying decisions are more likely to make that decision based on emotion.  So why does your web content include an endless list of features and not benefits?   Go back and look at your web content with this in mind and start thinking like a copywriter. 

Technorati tags: customers buying+decisions web+content online+marketing