The ULTIMATE Marketing IQ Test – In One Question!
February 10th, 2011 // 1:56 pm @ Scott
I’m about to tell you what my biggest Marketing Pet Peeve is.
Well, actually, I sort of already did, in an earlier email this week. But now, how about I go ahead and tell you exactly why I find this disturbing and how to go about changing this.
Here’s what I’m talking about…
The one question – Marketing IQ Test
Whenever I ask a New Member or Guest or any Group of Business People, “how do you get new customers” almost in 100% of the cases (that’s 100% of the cases, pre-GKIC, pre-Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Scott Manning, pre-Chapter Events, pre-any communication with Me and Us, what so ever)
Nearly 100% of the cases, people respond back with “well my best advertising (or marketing strategy) is word of mouth” and I immediately know,
ONE – they are full of BS, because that answer means they probably don’t really know what their best way of getting new customers or even have any “ways”
TWO – I know they are marketing novices, and at best case, they’ve been reading some off the shelf book by some speaker / pretend expert
and they surely aren’t spending any time around “real” in the trenches Entrepreneurs…like us!
So, quickly I’m going to tell you exactly why I have just said all of this, and probably figuratively slapped you across the face with my comments.
Before I do that, let me invite you, to fix all of this non-sense and put some ‘tried and true’ Real Marketing and Money Making Referral Strategies into your business, by attending our GKIC Indy Chapter Event this Friday.
You’ll find details and registration by clicking here, http://www.NoBSIndy.com/chaptermeeting
Now, here’s why I just said what I did.
PROBLEM: “word of mouth” is not a STRATEGY, it’s implies that you believe your customers will, on their own free volition go out of their way to interrupt their lives, and without any reason or incentive turn into your passionate and devoted Sales Force. “Word of Mouth” more often than not means You have no strategy and it always means you are giving up control and responsibility for ONE out of two of the most critical pieces to EVERY Business – New Customer Acquisition (the other being Customer Retention, it’s the 2 sided business coin, those you’ve got, and those you don’t)
SOLUTION: “word of mouth” only makes sense and/or works when it is created DELIBERATELY, through strategic means and methods of stimulating this Phenomenon amongst your customers and referrals sources.
4 SIMPLE Steps to Making “Word of Mouth” Work
YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM:
1) SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT
2) REASON TO TALK ABOUT IT
Then, as if that weren’t enough,
3) YOU HAVE TO TEACH THEM HOW TO TALK
And, finally after all that effort…
4) YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM THINGS TO MAKE IT ALL HAPPEN WITHOUT THEM ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING including Talking, Thinking, exerting Effort
Now, if you can illustrate to me, each of these 4 steps in your so called wonderful “Word of Mouth” New Customer Acquisition Marketing Plan, I’ll believe that a) you know at least a little regarding what you’re talking about and b) you actually get any new customers via this Strategy.
The bottom line is this – Bill Glazer says, “everybody has systems, whether they are good systems or not” is the question. So, You saying “word of mouth”, might actually mean you’ve got a system, I just bet it’s a system based around a whole lot of HOPING and not much Marketing…
Category : Blog
