Strategies for advertising, sales and marketing from the Trump University Faculty and Marketing Team
No thinking required
Let's face it. People are lazy. If given the choice between thinking through a problem and watching TV most people would opt for the TV. There is nothing wrong with some down time and this is not a judgment about you or your customers, we are all lazy by nature. Add to this how busy people are these days and you have a tough challenge if you want people to listen and act upon your marketing.
To create successful marketing you need to think about your target customer and one aspect is their mental state. What is going to make them take action. All good marketing has a call to action. What do you want your customers to do? Don't make them guess. Your customers are not mind readers. Tell them what they should do. If you don't they will likely do nothing at all or move on to the next task at hand. If you tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them to follow, a percentage of them will follow your directions.
Here are a couple of tips for you to think about when putting together your marketing messages:
- Use active words
- Repeat your directions/call to action
- Make sure it is easy to follow the directions
- Create a sense of urgency
Now get off that couch and let me know what you think. (this is a call to action...)
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8 Comments
I cut lazy minds!
Josef Katz
Ina
p.s.
I like You
I couldn't tell whether you were discussing lazy customers or lazy marketers.
I consider a lazy marketer as one who doesn't bother to take the time to determine what stage of the buying cycle their targets are in. If you're prospecting for customers using behavioral marketing and search (among other tactics), you have the opportunity to connect with your prospects or customers at specific stages of the cycle, with different desired actions for each.
For instance, if you're targeting someone at the beginning of their product consideration, you may direct them to find out more information by downloading a white paper, visiting a website, or even checking out what other customers say about your product. But if you're targeting people who've already been in the consideration stage for a while, and are moving into the buy stage, then you would give them a different, more direct selling message.
Another example of lazy (and ineffective) marketing: sending someone who clicks on a search or banner ad to your home page, instead of a targeted landing page.
It's a lesson from sales that marketers would do well to heed. (Lazy marketers can get away with it for a while and hide behind the numbers; lazy salespeople starve.)
Interesting distinction. I was just pointing out that in general your target audience is lazy. They don't want to think about what to do. They want/need to be told what to do.
BTW - There is no excuse for lazy marketing. With all the tools and technology available marketing should be targeted and relevant.
Thanks for reading and your input.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!
A set of guidelines, a set rules given to a typical American, and they will question "whats in it for me?"
rewards, benifits? I think its been a fair game. Why increase the ani?
If the same context was stated with focus on a goal it would provide the scenario.
- If a goal is set and then it is accomplished, what happens the next day? Maybe that lazy-ness streak mentioned. Until the next goal is drawn.
Although if the goal was realistic, each accomplishment will focus on the next task. -Endurance.
( I think grandmothers are smart, my grandma is smart if I talked to her about this, she would say "its just practice.")
"what’s in it for me" is an excellent point. I have been thinking about a post on this very topic.
Stay tuned.
Josef
Another point - Keep it simple!
We refined a program to profile C-Level executives at Global Fortune 1000 companies. The program originally contained 30 plus questions with no offer and no call to action. Some of the questions asked could've been answered using 3rd party data.
We now use two 3rd party data sources to answer 2/3 of the original list of questions. We ask the remaining questions over a series of visits and/or white paper downloads. We now have a 0% drop rate from the process.
When the original program was set up, sales worked directly with our webmaster.
Another point - Sales people sell. Keep them out of the marketing kitchen!
RV
It sounds like you know how to get people to take action. Interesting study you shared.
I disagree with your comment about sales people. If your business relies on sales people to sell a product or service you must include the sales team in marketing. They are your front line to the customer. Don't minimize their potential contribution. This doesn't mean you have to follow their strategic ideas but listen to what they have to say. Sales people can help you focus your messaging and improve your understanding of the target audience.