To most people, this was just another cool slap-on-the-back, atta-boy, feel-good, internet story-of-the-moment.

To me, it’s marketing 101 genius.

The story, that ran around the web, soaking up it’s 15 minutes of fame is about a typical high school kid, Connor Cordova. And how he posted 3 YouTube videos asking superhot Maxim pinup model and UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste to be his prom date.

Of course, it’s only a story because she said yes.

The Mechanics of Good Marketing

The 3 step marketing plan I’m going to share with you is actually pretty simple.

But to get to it we have to look at a few of the marketing gems in this story first. This gives us the foundation we need to really understand the plan.

Marketing Gem #1 – What’s in a Name?

First off, it doesn’t hurt to have a name like Connor Cordova. Alliteration (Co-Co) is just good branding. It’s catchy and it’s memorable because it has a ring to it. Find out more about this tactic in my free Branding eBook. It’s the same kind of alliteration/rhyming enjoyed by people like Tila Tequila and Jack Black.

And of course, it’s a technique often used by corporations to build brand names and catchy slogans. Think Coca-Cola, Intel inside, Marlboro man, and Rent-a-Wreck.

Whether you’re born with a great name, building a public persona, or need a brand name for a company, product, or service … making it catchy and memorable just makes everything easier.

Marketing Gem #2 – Positioning and Social Proof

This is the big takeaway.

He would not have had a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling this off without some celebrity endorsements. So he got MMA fighters Eddie Bravo, Miguel Torres, and Frank Trigg to roll video with him and help him pop the question on YouTube.

The power of both social proof and of positioning your brand next to other well-known and trusted brands is awesome. There’s nothing like it, and it is without question the deciding factor in his success in this little escapade.

Marketing Gem #3 – Keep the Ball Rolling

Whether it’s marketing … or anything really … capitalizing on your successes to create more of them is what builds the momentum you need to make big things happen.

And as with most success stories, if we dig a little deeper into this one, we can see there’s more under the hood than simply “high school kid invites supermodel to prom and she says yes”.

And behind the scenes of this story is Connor Cordova’s website MMA Religion.

The power of the internet is anyone can create a voice for themselves. And it’s the website that gave him the platform with which to approach MMA fighters and interview them. Which over time lead to building trusted relationships. And that lead to getting them on board with his sensational date request.

Now you can really start to see the mechanics and how a whole marketing strategy can be built with good old fashioned blood, sweat, and tears.

So Here’s Your 3 Step Plan

Step 1 – Build Something

You need something that other people with strong personal or corporate brands will want to attach themselves to. It might be a website. Or it might be a product or service. Whatever it is, it has to offer real value.

Step 2 – Build the Relationships

Cultivate great relationships with these movers and shakers. And this is a two-way street or it’s nothing at all. A relationship is mutually beneficial and your strongest guiding principle should be this: don’t think about what you can get, but what you can give.

Step 3 – GFTW (Go For the Win)

Dream up some crazy or creative opportunity where everyone benefits. The prom story is great exposure for everybody involved and for the MMA sport as well.

I don’t think this story was some kind of planned marketing strategy, but all the mechanics of good marketing were there. And that’s the beauty of this strategy …

If you build something worthwhile and build the relationships that follow, step #3 will just happen all by itself.

Okay, go build something.

© Zoomstart, 2010. | Marketing Genius: A 3 Step Plan

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Barack Obama’s email list is worth half a billion dollars. Do I have your attention yet?

Every business needs to have a web strategy, and every web strategy needs to incorporate list building and email marketing. If you don’t, you’re missing a massive opportunity to engage and interact with your users … and to sell, presell, upsell, cross sell, and turn one time customers into repeat customers. You need a list.

In fact, good list building and email marketing is responsible for the lion’s share of online profits made by many Fortune 500 companies, web-trepreneurs, and affiliate marketers. It’s extremely powerful. In fact “list marketing” is so powerful that it takes shape in many forms; telemarketing, fax marketing, and direct mail marketing as well as email marketing.

Isn’t it just spam? The difference between spam and good email marketing is this: permission. It’s permission-based marketing when you ask users to subscribe and give them the option not to. And when your users can unsubscribe at any time, quickly and easily. And when you provide great value that fulfills their expectations.

Then, it’s a trusted connection. And it can be the foundation to a multi-million dollar business.

So to help you put your list building and email marketing strategy together, here’s a … well, a list … of resources where you can find the tools, software solutions, and strategies for building your lists and launching your email marketing campaigns …

1. Feedburner

WordPress, combined with a Feedburner account, and the FeedSmith plugin to unite the two is as simple and easy as it gets … and best of all, the whole package is free. WordPress is a great CMS for all but the most massive and complex websites. And Feedburner allows readers to subscribe to your “blog” posts by email (over half my subscribers do), as well as giving you metrics and some other great tools.

Now, allowing people to subscribe to your blog through RSS or email is not exactly list building (some would say). But it’s one of the things that makes blogs so powerful; some blogs have more than a million subscribers … if that’s not a powerful list, I don’t know what is.

2. Services, Software, and Integrated Solutions

AWeber, MailChimp, Campaigner, Vertical Response, iContact, and Constant Contact are all email marketing services. They give you the code to put subscription forms on your websites, track your subscribers, and enable you to create complex, targeted campaigns that can generate, personalize and send out emails according to criteria you specify. Since most of them offer free limited trials, you might as well take a few for a spin before you decide which one to go with.

Interspire, L-Soft, and Group Mail create email marketing software. Hosting your own solution has a higher startup cost than using a service; you have to buy the software, setup a server, and you’ll need a little more expertise to run it yourself. But if you have a big list, it’ll be cheaper than paying service fees in the long run. You also have complete in-house control over your list; a very valuable asset to your business. One good strategy is to start with a service and then migrate into a self-hosted solution as your email marketing efforts grow.

NetSuite and Salesforce are for larger companies. These kinds of solutions do much more than just email marketing. They allow you to integrate that strategy into the rest of your business complete with metrics, ecommerce, inventory control, and even accounting. These tools make email marketing a true component of your business and give you access to a network of professionals that can help you get the results you’re looking for.

3. Getting Traffic to Your Signup Page

Before you can start email marketing, you have to build a list. The strategies for list building can be broken down into 2 parts; first, you need to generate traffic to your signup page …

• How to Build a High Traffic Website or Blog
• 3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic
• SEO (search engine optimization) video tips from Google’s Matt Cutts
• A Beginner’s Guide to Social News Websites
• Using Social Media Sites to Grow Your Blog’s Traffic
• How to Use Forums To Drive Hundreds of Thousand of Readers to Your Blog
• Get a template and best practices advice on writing press releases from PRWeb
• Online Video Marketing: Ten Ways You Can Use YouTube To Promote Your Online Content
• Google’s AdWords Learning Center for PPC (pay per click) advertising

4. Motivating People to Subscribe

Now that you’ve got traffic flowing to your website the second thing to do to build your list is to motivate or incentivize people to subscribe …

• Copywriting 101: An Introduction to Copywriting
• How Crappy Landing Pages Kill Email Campaigns
• Seal the Deal: 10 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page
• What Is A Double Opt-In Email List And Why Is It Important?
• Great video on landing page tips from Frank Kern and Pen Island Studios
• Email Marketing Tips: Getting More Email Subscribers
• How to Collect/Capture Email Addresses
• Increase Your Sales/Optin Conversions with Multi-Media
• A great giveaway incentive is to Create and Publish Your Own (free) eBook

5. Email Marketing Strategies

Finally, you’ve got the tools in place and you’ve started building an email list. Now it’s time to put some smart email marketing strategies to use …

• The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers
• Email Marketing Statistics and Metrics
• How Email Segmentation Made My List Stronger AND $31,940 More Profitable
• Read Lucrative List Building by Glen Hopkins
• How To Build a Successful Email Newsletter
• Great example of email marketing
• Get MailChimp’s free email marketing guide: HTML Email Coding/Delivery Guide for Web Developers

Now you’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing method, online or off. Making it work for you comes from two things: integrity and relevance. With those two things in mind, you’re literally building a vehicle that produces income or influence at the push of a button …

click.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | The Complete Guide to List Building and Email Marketing

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Most business books only teach half of what you need to know to start and run a successful business. And guess what? It’s the wrong half.

That’s right, you can learn how to set up a corporation, how to lease space, track inventory, and all the other things that cost you money in most business books. They teach the “buying” side of business. And very few books have much to say about the “selling” side. And selling is far more important. At least, it is if you want to create a successful business that makes money.

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling IS that other half of business you need to know.

It’s a must-have book for any entrepreneur or business owner. And in it, Jeffrey outlines 12.5 (catchy huh?) principles to help you sell anything. Let’s take a look at them …

1. Kick your own ass. At the end of the day, there is no truer motivation than YOU … wanting it. Selling is hard; not selling is why most businesses fail. And the only way to push the excuses aside and not get caught in the blame game is to take ownership of the situation and not allow YOU to fail. A riding instructor once said to a friend of mine “you have to fall off your horse 5 times before you can be a real cowboy”. Well, part of that is getting back on that horse every time you fall off. Yippee ki-yay cowboy.

2. Prepare to win, or lose to someone who is. What do you know about what you’re selling? About what the competition is offering? About who you’re selling to? Knowledge is power and having good answers to the hard questions is often the difference between making a sale and going home empty handed. Preparedness means you have the solutions to your customer’s problems. It means you’ve done your homework and you’re two steps ahead of everyone else.

3. Personal branding IS sales: It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. There’s no easier way to sell than when the customer comes to you. And they come to you because they know YOU. They know your brand. And they trust it. What people think about you is what they think about what you’re selling so don’t tarnish your personal brand. If you build a solid personal brand, you’ll be the first thing people think of when they think about your products and services. And you’re the first person they’ll call when they want to buy.

4. It’s all about value, it’s all about relationship, it’s not all about price. Competing on price is a hard game to play, and it doesn’t cultivate customer loyalty. Only value and relationship building can do that. And rather than “adding” value, you want to give it away up front. The more value you give away freely, the higher the perceived value willl be for the stuff you sell. And cultivating relationships will open doors that are guarded by “trust”; something that great pricing alone can never push past.

5. It’s NOT work, it’s NETwork. You know those people who have everything come to them easily. It’s not luck, it’s networking. The more tentacles you have reaching out into every corner of the universe, the easier it is to find what you need. Or rather, have it find you. One of the biggest things that stops people from networking is the time it takes. You have to make it fun and not a chore. The best salespeople I know are always out having a blast. And they invite along the people they want to network with. Good networking is never “work”.

6. If you can’t get in front of the real decision maker, you suck. Learning the language of the people who sign the checks is critical. Often you’ve got one small window to grab their attention so you can make a broader pitch, and if you blow it, your amazing pitch doesn’t matter. I met a brilliant programmer a couple years ago who was trying to start his own business. His ideas were absolutely cutting edge. The problem was, you needed an engineering degree to understand him. And it didn’t matter what other engineers thought about his ideas, it’s the CEOs he needed to excite. Because they write the checks.

7. Engage me and you can make me convince myself. From a leadership perspective, I know if you can get someone to take ownership of a task, the rest is easy. It’s all about providing direction rather than micro-managing. And the same goes for selling. If you can guide your customers in the right direction so they find their own way to making a purchase, the rest is easy.

8. If you can make them laugh, you can make them buy. How many funny commercials do you remember vs dramatic ones? Laughter is viral. It reduces our stress hormones and puts us in that “feelgood” mood that makes us more receptive to the ideas in front of us. Comedy can be tricky, but making people laugh is the quickest way to create an atmosphere of trust and goodwill. So, slay them with a smile if you wanna rack up the sales.

9. Use CREATIVITY to differentiate and dominate. When something is proven to work, we tend to emulate it to create the same successful results for ourselves. The problem is, whatever it was, probably worked because it was different. It was new. It was fresh. It got attention. If you want to be good, you can follow a proven formula. But if you want to be great, you have to get creative and do something different. You have to create the next big thing that everyone else copies.

10. Reduce their risk and you’ll convert selling to buying. This principle is 100% risk-free guaranteed to increase your sales! See how easy it is to eliminate risk? Risk is a hurdle every buyer has to get over. That’s why things like branding, trust, and social proof are so important; they eliminate certain unknowns. But there are all kinds of risks a buyer can face. Know the risks to your customers and find ways to reduce or eliminate them. Now you’re changing the dynamic from push to pull; rather than “selling” to them, they’re “buying” from you because you’ve removed the obstacles that were in THEIR way.

11. When you say it about yourself it’s bragging. When someone else says it about you it’s proof. This principle is a testament to testimonials. The essence of social proof is that other people believe in your products and services. They rave about them. And the more people that believe, the more people that will. Testimonials are so powerful that most of the best companies in the world spend millions every year getting celebrities and sports figures to market their stuff. On a smaller scale, that proof comes from your previous customers and from media buzz.

12. Antennas up! There are opportunities all around you. Opportunities to make a sale, to change the dynamic of a pitch that’s going badly, to project confidence instead of doubt. All of those opportunities can slip right by unnoticed if you’re not paying attention. Great opportunities can be large or small and they’re doors that are only open for a short time. Always be aware of what’s going on around you and be ready to jump through those doors when they open.

12.5. Resign your position as general manager of the universe. Sales success has one downside: you’re good, and you know it. And other people know it. In reality, you can’t solve every problem and you can’t start thinking you can. You don’t know better than everyone else, and you can’t start thinking you do. It’s easy to get “above” yourself. It’s human, and I’ve done it plenty of times. We all have and we all will. And it’s the best way to put people off and start a downward spiral of sales failure. Let someone else rule the universe. And just focus on selling.

So there you have it; 12.5 principles for being a great salesperson. The Little Red Book of Selling is truly one of those definitive books on its subject. I can go through these principles and think about the best salespeople I know and check them all off as things they practice.

It’s the other half of business all those other business books don’t talk about. The right half. The better half.

The profitable half.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness from the Little Red Book of Selling

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If you’ve ever looked at ways to make money online, then you’ve probably heard of affiliate marketing. To boil it down; affiliate marketing is delivering internet users through SEO or paid advertising to a merchants website in order to gain a commission on a sale or some other action.

The internet makes it easy, which makes it very competitive … and so, not so easy. But affiliate marketing has been around a long, long time. Long before the internet was in full swing.

Here’s a true story about off-line affiliate marketing I think you’ll find entertaining and educational …

The Drunken Barber

Years ago, I met this dude who was a hair stylist. I can’t even remember his name but he was really hyper and had a real drinking problem. Just picture “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” mixed with Mickey Rourke’s character in the movie “Barfly”.

He was also a world class bullshitter … er … I mean schmoozer.

And although he never had a problem getting a job; he was a very good stylist and worked at some of the top salons … he couldn’t keep a job to save his life because of his partying. So he was always looking for quick cash.

Enter affiliate marketing. Being the barfly and conversationalist that he was, he managed to strike up a deal with a local bar to bring in customers and he asked me to help him design a membership card. So here’s how it worked …

He had these cards printed up, with the bar’s logo and little boxed numbers all along the edges that could be punched out with a standard ticket hole-punch (no modern day swipe-and-scan gift card stuff here). The card entitled the patron to one free drink, limited to one use per day, and cost $50, so that’s less than a dollar per drink. A pretty good deal.

The whole idea behind this promotion is that most people have more than one drink when they go to the bar, so to the bar owner it’s like a discount/rewards card to get people into his place. And of course, the hero of our story gets paid $50 a pop for schmoozing and selling these cards to his fellow barflies around town.

His plan was to sell 300 cards and rake in $15000. I don’t know how it went, but he was a pretty good talker so I’m sure he did alright.

So as you can see, affiliate marketing has been around for a while. It’s about great offers that sell themselves to a targeted crowd. It’s also about creative deal-making with merchants that pay off for them on the back end.

And it’s not just an internet-only business.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | Old School Affiliate Marketing BEFORE The Internet

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Effective advertising and marketing leads to sales, and sales lead to building a successful business. That simple equation tells us why successful businesses are always advertising.

Now wouldn’t it be great to get some free advertising to jumpstart your sales?

The Real Secret of Flyer Advertising

We all get flyers in the mail, and most newspapers have a nice collection of them sprinkled in between the pages of the paper. The most common flyers are the ones you see every week; from local home electronics and grocery stores offering up great deals for the week.

Here’s the big secret …

Those companies don’t pay for the flyers. Cool, huh? Here’s what they do; they canvas their suppliers and what they’re asking for is two things.

1. A great offer. This is basically a discount that they are going to pass on to the consumer. It’s usually a limited time offer for the length of the promotion.
2. A placement fee. Quite simply a check to cover the cost for featuring their products in the flyer. This is what pays for the flyers.

There’s no big trick to this. It’s a standard business practice, but most small businesses don’t know how it works so they don’t take advantage of this kind of promotional advertising.

Putting Together Your Flyer Campaign Step by Step

1. Know your audience

This technique is best suited for the local area where you sell goods or services. And although a lot of people see flyers as little more than a housebreaking tool for their dog, many people DO read flyers. And these people are looking for a good deal. A special, a sale, a unique offer.

These deal-seekers are your audience. And they live in your local area.

2. Scope out the market

Gather up as many flyers as you can and see what kind of deals other companies are promoting. Which flyers catch your attention? How are they laid out? Pay special attention to single page flyers from small businesses; this is generally the best design for small businesses and it allows you to make a strong, bold pitch for one or two products or services.

3. Find out the costs

There are a lot of ways to distribute flyers, like business-to-business fax services and mail services. But probably one of the best ways is with an insert in a free local newspaper that’s home delivered weekly. Wherever you live there are probably one or two of these local papers and they operate solely on advertising income. The great thing about these papers is they cater to your local area. And the people that like to stay in tune with the local news are the same people who love finding great deals.

Rather than making this a one-shot deal, think about running your flyer campaign weekly for three or four weeks. This will give your campaign a real chance to get results, and you can get better pricing.

Get at least two or three pricing/campaign-duration options to take to your suppliers. The longer the campaign is that you can get placement fees for, the better.

4. Craft the deal

Now that you know the costs and have an idea of the kind of deal you want to offer your customers, it’s time to sell the idea to your suppliers. Be creative, and don’t be afraid to take their suggestions on what to offer and how to offer it; after all, they’re paying for it.

But remember, you’re not just doing advertising for them. The key is, customers are coming to you, and your supplier benefits because you sell more of their goods in the process. It’s very important that you get both a discount or a giveaway from your supplier to create a compelling offer, and a placement fee to cover the cost of the advertising. Other than that, let your creativity run wild.

5. Execute your plan

Metrics are very important. You want to track the results of your campaign, and that can be as simple as monitoring the increase in your sales from the campaign.

The big chain stores that do this generally have merchandising contracts with their suppliers. The contract states that the supplier agrees to do x number of promotions a year with the retailer, providing discounts, placement fees, and marketing displays and materials. Having this kind of ongoing promotional agreement is good for both businesses.

But to get ongoing promotion contracts, you need to show results. So tracking is important. If you can show your supplier an increase in sales due to the campaign, they’ll sign up again.

Some Examples of Different Businesses

You might be thinking, ‘this doesn’t really fit my business’. Sure it does. You just have to get creative. Here’s a couple examples to show how you could work this with different types of businesses …

Example #1. You have a painting company, which is basically a service business. Professional painters generally get paint from a paint store rather than a big-box hardware store because it’s better quality and covers in fewer coats. That’s a great selling feature because it means less labor cost for your clients. Talk about that benefit in your flyer, and get your supplier to offer a 15% discount on paint. Finally, don’t forget your call to action; “Call us for a quote today!”

Example #2. You have a pet supply store. You might want to have a store-wide sale, but you also want to get your flyer promotion paid for. Secure as many sale discounts as you can from different suppliers by telling them about your promotion. Choose some key products and get some great deals plus placement fees from those suppliers. In this case, your flyer is pitching your “super-duper kick-ass store-wide sale”, and features a few really great offers that you secured placement fees for.

Example #3. You have a swimwear store. Now let’s think outside the box for this one. Discounts are great for getting traffic into your shop, but there are other incentives too. You might get one of your swimwear suppliers to sponsor a trip for two to the Bahamas, plus pay for the flyers. Customers can enter the contest at your store, and get an additional entry for every swimsuit they purchase.

As you can see, there are lots of ways to craft flyer promotion deals. And by bringing your suppliers in as strategic partners on the promotion, you can get free advertising that benefits both them and you.

Try it. You’ll like it.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | How to Get Free Local Advertising For Your Small Business

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I love movies. Always have. And every great movie, whether it’s a big Hollywood production or an indie cult classic starts with a great screenplay. The script is what attracts talent and investment, inspires genius, and ultimately just tells a great story worth watching.

And there’s a formula to storytelling that makes great movies great. A formula that never fails to rise to the challenge because it educates and entertains by grasping at the very roots of the human condition.

That formula is classical mythological story structure. And it’s allowed stories like Homer’s Odyssey to persevere for literally thousands of years. And you can play with the formula quite a bit. After all, it’s just a framework.

But there are some key ingredients you have to have to make a great screenplay. No matter what the genre, you’ll find that the best movies have these things. And the worst, don’t.

The Key Ingredients in Great Screenwriting

1. The Extraordinary Hero

Typically, you can either put an ordinary character into extraordinary circumstances or vice-versa. But there has to be something compelling here. Something interesting, new, different. There’s a reason your hero is the “chosen one”.

Your hero has to stand out. They have to have some special quality, trait, or skill that will be a great asset in the quest ahead. And your audience has to recognize it. If they don’t get it, if they don’t understand it, all is lost.

Your hero can be, for the most part, very ordinary. But there’s a glimmer there. A spark. Something extraordinary.

2. You Need an Anima

Usually, your anima (or animus) is a love interest, but not always. Your anima is the second half of your hero. She or he is a partner, a mentor, a conscience, and most importantly, a reason to move forward.

It’s the anima that enables your hero to grow and become better by helping him see something inside himself he didn’t know was there. The relationship between the hero and anima is the heart of the human experience.

3. The First Twist into the Second Quest

Of course there’s some kind of quest or mission or goal. It’s what the movie is about.

But there has to be two quests. This is a critical part of storytelling that many screenwriters leave out. You know those movies that seem to be over before they even get going … they have no second quest.

The transition from the first quest to the second is the first big twist in the movie. Your hero needs to realize that the first quest was a false one. Everything he thought was wrong. He was on the wrong path. Discovering and embarking on the second quest is where your hero grows.

It’s the point where your hero becomes worthy and can see the truth.

And the transition should be a twist in the plot that you can’t see coming. Some secret is learned. The veil is pulled back. We become enlightened. This is where the audience finds renewed life, and they start cheering “alright, here we go!”

4. The Outcome and Final Twist

The outcome is where your hero triumphs during the big climax and then rides off into the sunset. But just as important is the final twist.

Most horror movies are really weak in the final twist department. They usually just throw in a shot showing us the monster is still alive. What you really want to do is build the final twist into the story and make it part of the final climax. That’s what makes the final twist all powerful.

Mythological Story Structure

You can learn more about screenwriting and storytelling from great books such as The Writer’s Journey, Stealing Fire from the Gods, and Made to Stick.

Most people know there needs to be some kind of quest or journey and that a twist at the end is good. But there are two quests in a great story, and two major plot twists. Watch your favorite movies and find them.

Cut.

That’s a wrap.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | How to Write a Screenplay Hollywood Will Love

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Mark Gungor is a very good lecturer and very funny. In this video he illustrates the difference between how men think vs. how women think.

It’s really important to think about gender when you’re building a marketing campaign. Most products and services have a very specific demographic that’s either male or female. And your marketing has to appeal to the gender you’re selling to.

For example, pink and fluffy power tools … probably not a big seller.

Mark makes some important points that every marketer should take note of. When you’re marketing to men, keep it simple. Very simple. Show them how your product fixes a problem. When you’re marketing to women, build a connection; connect your product to other things in their lives. Lots of other things.

Very funny and entertaining. And insightful.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | Marketing: How Men Think Vs. How Women Think

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Or maybe I should say the marketing of art …

I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately – gearing up for an amateur painting contest with some friends. And this is all on the lo-fi, and by that I mean on canvas, not photoshop.

Anyway, I’ve also been studying some of history’s great masters to get some ideas on style and technique and I came across J W Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs. And my first thought was … ‘Man, that’s good marketing’!

So let’s take a look at this great classic work of art (pictured above) and see what it can teach us about marketing …

1. Sex Sells. Like it or not, it’s true. Personally I think it’s more correct to say “sexy” sells. Regardless, you can put a pretty smile on a bottle of rat poison and rats or no rats, sell truckloads of the stuff. Nothing is more imperative than the biological imperative.
2. Find the Ideal and Repeat it. Idealism was an art movement that basically took the best parts of Realism and threw out the rest … look at all the nymphs … they could be twins, triplets, er … well you get the point. They’re all the same. They’re all Waterhouse’s ideal version of a beautiful woman. And repetition is what you use to promote your ideal.
3. It’s All About Lifestyle. Location is a big part of this. So is portraying leisure and fun. What could be more refreshing on a hot summer day than a cool, clear freshwater swimming hole. Think about the lifestyle you want to associate with your product or service and transport your customers there with your marketing.
4. The Real Story is Just Beginning. The end-note of your marketing is just the beginning of your customer getting on board. And it’s always good to leave your audience wanting more. As a marketer, it’s your job to lead people to the idea of what that “more” is, and then let them get involved and write the next chapter themselves. In the painting, you can see that Hylas is being dragged into the pond by the beautiful nymphs. And that’s where the painting ends.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Not if rule number one has anything to say about it.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | J W Waterhouse and the Art of Marketing

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The “when” is easy to answer. Always. This isn’t as obvious as it sounds because in practice, most businesses start marketing and advertising when they start up and then one single thing always happens that makes them stop …

Change.

It can be change for the better, or for the worse. But that change usually becomes the new focus. It’s either “Oh wow, we have all these orders to fill” or it’s “Oh no, things aren’t going as planned. We have to make some cuts”.

To keep a good thing rolling forward or to turn around a bad situation, you have to keep some focus on your marketing and advertising and translate all of it into sales. Here’s how to approach your advertising based on your situation …

1. Build your brand. Things are going great. You’ve got more business than you can handle so there’s no use wasting money on marketing right? Wrong. This is the time to build your brand.

When you build your brand you get customers coming to you. They’re coming to you because they know you and trust your brand. And when people are coming to you; when they want what you have, it’s a lot easier to charge more and increase your margins.

2. Refocus your pitch. It’s easy to throw marketing dollars out into the world and not generate any sales. If you need more sales and your marketing isn’t doing the trick it’s a simple matter of “evolve or die”.

Look at who you’re advertising to. Where you’re advertising. How far removed is your advertising … how long does it take and how many steps are there between your pitching point and ringing in the sale? Is your pitch timely? Relevant? Does it grab attention? Does it make an offer people can’t refuse? Keep changing your pitch until it works.

3. Scale back everything else. When business is down, one of the first things that often gets cut is the marketing budget. Every department gets a haircut. But if your advertising is bringing in whatever sales a down market will allow you, then it makes more sense to keep it up and trim everywhere else.

Look at cutting all your expenses outside of sales. Renegotiate your purchasing costs. Scale back your production and your production staff – or see who you can repurpose and move into sales. If you can cut back your operations to a level that your sales in the current market can pay for, you can ride out the downturn or buy some time to restrategize your whole business. But if you cut back on advertising and marketing, the result is even lower sales.

Your advertising, your marketing, and your salespeople have one job. To pay for everything. In good times and bad.

And that never changes.

© Zoomstart, 2008. | Business is Good, Business is Bad … When to Advertise and How

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The very nature of being an entrepreneur means you’re taking a bit of a shot in the dark with your business idea. You’re blazing a new trail. Going where (hopefully) no one else has gone before.

But you can make your startup a whole lot easier by following someone else’s trail in the beginning.

You Gotta Be a Prince Before You Become King

In the end, it’s that new territory that you discover and conquer that will make you the king in your industry. But you’ve got to start somewhere, and the best place to start is to follow the current kings around and learn from them.

No matter what you’re selling; products, services, affiliate marketing … there are already people and companies out there making an absolute killing in the market. Some of them spend millions of dollars develping packaging that sells, ad copy that stops you in your tracks, and websites that convert into sales.

Take advantage of that.

You don’t want to follow just anyone around. Track the best. If you’re into real estate, pay attention to Donald Trump, not the local ReMax dude. If you’re into internet marketing, pay attention to Yahoo rather than the average A-list blogger.

Don’t simply copy them or rip them off blatantly. Dig into what they do and understand it. Test it. Learn and emulate.

It’s an education in sales psychology, language, graphic presentation. They’ve spent millions on your education. Are you gonna pass that up?

Start Rolling Before You Rock It

It’s true, you can’t become the king by following others. But your goal here is to just get the ball rolling. You’re using what’s already proven to work to get started and start generating some real success. As you go along, you’ll understand what works, what doesn’t, and why.

That’s some serious capital that you can parlay into blazing your own trail once you’ve built a solid foundation and some sustainable earnings.

And from there, the sky’s the limit.

“Only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one.”
~ Elvis Presley

© Zoomstart, 2008. | If You Want to be The King … Do What The Kings Do

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