Solving the Marketing Model Mystery
It’s your lucky day: You’ve found a great product to promote.
Maybe it’s a client’s product. Maybe it’s your own.
And because your discovery possesses the six qualities direct-response homeruns share, you suspect you just might be looking at a grand slam:
- This product delivers benefits your prospects already want.
- It conveys these rational and emotional benefits in superior ways.
- You’ve got proof elements out the wazzoo.
- It’s a screamin’ deal.
- The offer makes buying this product, from you, today a no-brainer.
- Downstream sales are a slam-dunk.
In fact, this product is so good, you’d feel guilty if you failed to nag your sweet, sainted old grammy until she bought it. Better yet, you’d joyfully buy it and give it to her yourself.
Congratulations, my friend. You’ve got a product that can make your reputation, your career, and your fortune.
… So where do you start?
Well, you’d sit right down and write the ultimate promotion for your ultimate product, right?
Well, not exactly. In fact, not by a long shot.
Instead of ETR’s “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach, that would be “Fire! Ready? Aim.”
First, you need to find a marketing model that’s the best fit for your product.
“So what the heck is a marketing model?” you ask.
Simple. Your marketing model describes the strategy – the step-by-step process – you’re going to use to:
1. Find your best prospects …
2. Turn those prospects into customers in the most cost-effective way…
3. And, ultimately, cause your customers to:
- Buy from you more often …
- Spend more with you on each purchase, and …
- Keep buying from you longer. Hopefully, forever.
Get that right and you’re on your way. But if you screw it up, the best product ever invented and the most brilliant sales copy ever written won’t save your sorry butt.
I can’t be there with you the whole way. But I will give you a great starting point for getting a great marketing model …
Steal it.
Find a company that’s marketing a product similar to yours … that sells at a price point similar to yours … to prospects like yours … and shamelessly duplicate THEIR marketing model.
I mean, why re-invent the wheel? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of successful companies in every niche market you can name. The most successful ones have spent years and millions of dollars in slow, painful trial-and-error testing to find their optimal prospect/media/messaging/offer mix.
The conclusions they’ve drawn from all that priceless marketing data are easy to see. You just have to watch what they’re doing.
When I begin working with a new client in a new niche, the first thing I want to know is, “What are the names of the five most successful companies in this niche?”
Once I have those names, the questions come fast and furious: “What kinds of prospects are they targeting? What media are they using? What kinds of offers are they making? What price points am I seeing most often? What kinds of sales copy and formats are they using to attract new customers?”
I grab the appropriate SRDS publication (usually the latest Direct Marketing List Source) and look up my target companies. I search for clues on how fast they’re growing (by studying the number of hotline names they have available) … how they generate their customers … and what their price points are.
I check Target Marketing’s Who’s Mailing What to see if they have any samples of my targets’ promotions on file.
I buy something from the companies I’m studying, suspecting that they’ll be sending their new customer acquisition promos to their customer file. And I buy something from their main competitors, hoping my target companies will rent those lists and I’ll be able to see the promotions they use to attract new customers.
I visit the popular websites in my client’s market niche to see if my target companies are placing banner ads on those sites or sponsoring those e-zines. I click every link that I suspect may lead me to their squeeze pages, landing pages, or websites. If they have an e-zine, I subscribe. If their website invites me to register, I register.
Picture this…
While you slept last night, your bank account was pumped with cash. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you just help yourself to the money from any ATM, anytime of day. All because of a conversation you had over a coffee, let’s say.
Then, think how you’ll spend it. If nothing else, it’s a very nice safety net isn’t it?
And what if it didn’t cost you anything to make this?
In short, I do everything I can to make sure my target companies have my phone number … my street address … and my e-mail address so I can see as much of what they’re doing as possible.
Then, once I have a clear picture of how my target companies attract new customers, I simply “borrow” (okay, “steal”) a marketing model from the one that seems to be the most successful.
At this stage, I don’t want to innovate. I just want to help my client do things as well as the largest, most successful company in his niche. Once we’re doing that, it’s time to test new stuff. But initially, being as good as the best is good enough.
“Borrowing” marketing models from competitors is just one of the strategies I’ll be talking about at Early to Rise’s upcoming Info-Marketing Bootcamp this November. Also on the stage will be a dozen of the top Internet marketers working today. They’re not just respected in their fields – social media, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, and more – they’re making millions for themselves and their clients each month.
You can find out all about who’ll be joining me at Bootcamp here.
P.S. Master copywriter Clayton Makepeace publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits. Claim your 4 free moneymaking e-books – bursting with tips, tricks, and tactics that’ll skyrocket your response – at MakepeaceTotalPackage.com.