Surviving the Market
Did anyone watch Survivor this last season? The newest Survivor millionaire is 57 year old high school physics teacher, Bob Crowley. During the special announcing, the winner, Bob was asked how he had acquired a piece of string that he used to make a fake immunity idol, and where he had acquired the beads to make it look so realistic. Bob chuckled and said that the string was the tie on one of the challenges that were issued, he just popped it in his pocket, and the beads came from the tribe flag.
I saw this two minute segment of Survivor this past Sunday when I was walking back to my office, this is the only two minutes of this season that I have seen. What struck me was the relevance of what he did to win that one million dollars and what it takes to win one million loyal customers.
Wow what a leap! No, not really. He won because every time he saw something he took note of it, or if possible he put it in his pocket. For those marketing any type of product or service, squirreling away information is by far the most important task of any marketing effort.
I am reminded of how Joe Girard would collect information about each and every prospect that he spoke with and he would add to that information after each additional contact. He referred to this as his intelligence system. Every business needs an intelligence system.
In the Internet marketing world it is called list building. A list is nothing unless you have the information and you know how to use it. Survivor Bob not only knew that he might need a piece of string; he also found the perfect opportunity to use the string.
For most that market online, the list building starts and ends with the name and email address of the prospects. That is just the piece of string, it is just the start!
Once the email address is captured the next goal is to find each and every opportunity to gather more information about that prospect. Try some of these ideas to beef up your list:
- Find something that you can send to your list, be it a free report, a training dvd, or an industry relative gift. This gets you a physical address.
- If appropriate for your industry, offer a wish list service. This gets you a spouse’s name, or other family member names, and what products they are interested in.
- Teleconference where your customers can email in ahead of time their questions. This get’s you an interest point they have in your services.
Each and every time a customer talks to you on the phone, or contacts you by email, think of those contacts as strings. Your job is to pick up the string, put it in your intelligence system whether it be a 3×5 index card system, or an elaborate database.
Now that you have the information gathered, what do you do with all of the new bits of information that you have.
This is what will set you apart from you competition. This is the key to dominating whatever industry you are in.
Targeted and focused marketing efforts:
- Send out a very targeted direct mail piece, make it personalized. A special savings on a product that this target audience is interested in is a nice way to invite a customer back, but take it one step further and think like Amazon. Offer a few selections that they may be interested in based on what you know about them.
- Offer a very specific teleconference or seminar that targets a very unique group of people. For example, if you find that many of your clients are MLM based companies, why not find a way to specifically help those clients and address their specific needs.
- Find someone else that has complementary products or services to your own, and pair up together to offer your customers and even the new partner’s customers a combined deal. This doubles your exposure and you are addressing needs your customer may have that your own company does not address.
As you can see the more information you have, the more target the effort can be.
Remember, this is a money saver! This allows you to send out fewer pieces of mail, and get a higher return on what you send out.
What to take away from this article
- Gather information, even if you think you will never need it.
- Turn you marketing into a focused invitation to continue doing business with you.
- Partnerships to maximize your effectiveness to the customer and double or more the number of people exposed to your message.
About the Author
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