Lead Generation Articles & Book Reviews

Rich Schefren is one of my business heroes, and here he gives you his thoughts on the critical digital marketing trends that are emerging in 2021.

The video is over 2 hours long so get yourself a drink and use your journal to take notes of ideas you want to remember. I’d even recommend you break down the video into several sessions so that you keep your concentration rates high.

Here is the video.

Rich Schefren is one of my business heroes, and in this 10-minute video, he gives you thoughts on the best digital marketing strategies for 2021.

It’s hard to keep up with what keeps changing, and you need to be wary about spreading your time and energy too thinly by trying to cover too many areas.

The ideas Rich covers are:

#1 – Clubhouse
#2 – Live Streaming
#3 – YouTube
#4 – Reputation Management
#5 – Influencer Marketing
#6 – Repurposing Content

Here is the video.

Rich Schefren is one of my business heroes, and in this 11-minute video, he gives you his best four strategies for getting online customers quickly.

Rich Schefren is one of my business heroes, and in this 13-minute video, he gives you his thoughts on how to write a good sales letter.

Copywriting is a very big subject and there is a lot on this website about copywriting. See this video from Rich – who isn’t a copywriter but has worked with some of the very best – as a high-level introduction to the art or a reminder of the key issues.

David Garfinkel is one of my business heroes, and in this 30-minute video, he talks to Roy Furr, another copywriter who I see very much as a rising star and feature on my blog.

It’s great to have them both together.

Rich Schefren is one of my business heroes, and in this 20-minute video, he answers some questions on marketing, starting off with interruptions to grab attention.

If marketing is everything you do in the business to attract, convert and keep customers and clients then what happens if your marketing doesn’t work?

It may have become anti-marketing.

What is Anti-Marketing?

Anti-marketing provides a reason for your marketing messages to be ignored and for potential customers to leave you and for existing customers to look elsewhere..

This isn’t a new idea. Rosser Reeves (the man who invented the Unique Selling Proposition) in his classic book Reality In Advertising says “The people who read and remember your advertising may buy less of your product than people who are not aware of your advertising at all. Your advertising, in other words, may, literally, be driving away customers.”

This is very bad news and shows that while marketing messages may be creating awareness, they may also build up resistance.

Anti-Marketing Is All Around Us

I see anti-marketing every day and so do you.

My email inbox fills up with marketers who are actively practising anti-marketing.

They train me to ignore their messages and to eventually unsubscribe.

How do they do that?

1. By sending me stuff that is irrelevant and no possible interest to me.
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2. By constantly pitching me. I want value from my relationships and not constant “buy me” messages. Yes there has to be a balance because if you don’t make an offer, then you won’t get much action.
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3. By sending me fluff that sounds interesting before I click but has no real value. It just wastes my time and makes me angry when I realise I could have been doing something much more productive.
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4. By sending me stuff that is the same as everyone else is sending. This is the big drawback of affiliate marketing for product launches. The constant barrage of emails may break down resistance for some but it builds up resistance for others – both for the product being promoted and for the sender of the email.

Why Ant-Marketing Works Against The Business

Every time you ignore a marketing message, you increase your chances of ignoring it again unless you think “That’s sounds interesting but it’s not quite the right time for me.”

Persuasion expert Robert Cialdini, identified the need to be consistent with what we’ve said and done in the past as one of the six factors of influence.

The more we do something, the more it becomes a habit. Something we want to do and believe is the right thing to do.

The less we do something, the more we think it’s a bad idea.

You see this with social media and why some people love Facebook and Twitter and use them all the time and many others try it once or twice, don’t get the point and then give up.

It’s the same with anti-marketing.

Ignore the contacts or marketing touches and instead of feeling bad that you’re missing out, you start to feel good. You’ve resisted temptation. You’ve taken back control of your life. You decide what you do and how you spend your time.

And when you feel good about ignoring marketing, you’ll do it more.

The Latest Example Of Anti-Marketing

Google Plus is the latest big thing in social media and I’ve become very aware of the impact of anti-marketing and I’m probably suffering from it as well.

When somebody who is a big name connects, I look through who they follow to fill in the gaps of who I’d like to have in my circles. I see plenty of names I’m familiar with and I ignore them.

Some I don’t know what they do – they’ve failed the 3 word branding test. They’ve had my attention in the past but it hasn’t been a strong enough connection for me to find a position in my mind.

Others I know what they do, but I haven’t been impressed. They’ve got a place in my mind but it’s not a good place.

Both are victims of anti-marketing.

Marketing Isn’t About Appealing To Everyone

Sometimes it’s right.

Perhaps I’m not their sort of person and vice-versa.

I was talking to a branding expert yesterday and I said that some people thought my Profit Tipping Point video was unprofessional. To me it’s a bit of fun and presents important parts of my marketing message in a light-hearted way. Those who think it’s silly are probably not my type of person, and we wouldn’t work well together.

It’s fine to polarise. In fact, I think you need to because attracting some means repelling others.

Since I’ve been self-employed and particularly since I stopped working with corporates, I’ve been very keen to take away any thought of the “stuffy, boring, patronising consultant” image.

I want you to succeed, I know my stuff and I want us both to have fun.

Perhaps that should be my tag-line.

Anti-marketing is happening when people you want to have a closer relationship with don’t connect with you, either because they don’t accept that you’re special or unique or they don’t think you’re authentic and genuine in your dealings.

What To Do If You’re A Victim Of Anti-Marketing

First you need to make sure that you stand for something. The three word test is powerful for you to define what you want people to think about you and to then check what they do think about you.

Then, once you’re clear on what you want to say – your main marketing message or theme – you need to carry out a  marketing audit.

If marketing is everything you do in the business to attract, convert and keep customers and clients then what is it that you are saying (verbally, in writing, impressions) and doing.

Does it support the message you want to send or does it contradict or confuse it?

Everything that presents your main message well, is likely to strengthen your brand and relationships. Everything that doesn’t is anti-marketing.

Do You Have Some Anti-Marketing Stories?

Have you experienced anti-marketing and be turned off somebody who you should like?

Or have you been guilty of anti-marketing yourself. I’ve already confessed that it took me a long time to specialise so people didn’t really know what I did.

Please let me know by leaving a comment.

SEO expert Nikki Pilkington reminded me recently of the three words test.

The idea is simple and works for business branding and personal branding.

What three words do you want customers and clients to think of when they hear your name or think of you?

Three Word Branding Examples

When I challenged Nikki, her answer was “SEO, social media, helpful” – OK that’s four words including one acronym but you get the idea.

When I thought about it for me, I want you to think “profit from differentiation” or something similar – in particular I want you to think of profit and differentiation as a united concept.

If I think of Maserati, I think of “fast, stylish Italian car”. Lamborghini is similar with “fast, flamboyant Italian car”. Ferraris are “red Italian racing cars” to me because of their grand prix heritage.

Aston Martins are “luxurious British grand tourers”

Mercedes means “prestigious, German engineering” to me.

Or for Kylie Minogue I think “Australian singer with a nice bottom.”

Applying The Brand Concept To Your Business

This simple test shows how clearly your brand is positioned in the mind of your customers.

I suggest you stop for a few minutes and ask yourself what you want your customers to think about you in three words.

Then ask a few of them.

If what they say echoes what you want them to say, then you can be reassured that you’ve done a fine job of branding yourself.

But if what they say is radically different, then you have a problem.

You don’t see yourself in the same way that your market sees you.

What To Do If Your Branding Isn’t What You Want It To Be

You have a choice.

Either you adapt your self-image to match what the market thinks and focus on using that to its best advantage.

Or you have to try to change the perceptions of the market to match what you want.

If the market doesn’t have a clear view, then you need to reinforce your brand through constant repetition of a few key ideas. Branding expert Ben Mack calls these “verbatim vitamins” because they pep up your brand.

But if the market has a clear view and it is wrong, then you’ve got a tough time ahead.

Look at Skoda cars as an example.

They used to have a terrible brand image and were the butt of jokes like

“What do you call a Skoda with a sun-roof?”

“Answer: A skip”

Since the takeover by the Volkswagen group, quality is much improved and the brand is strengthening.

But I bet there are people who don’t buy Skoda cars because of the old image.And others who buy despite reservations about the image.

Alfa Romeos have a similar problem. I can’t justify buying a Maserati, Lamborghini or Ferrari but I can afford an Alfa Romeo. I’m drawn to the brand because they are “Italian fine driving cars” but I can’t shake the old “unreliable rust-buckets” out of my mind that was the reputation the brand earned from the 1970s. I think I might need a second car if/when the Alfa breaks down and that makes buying an Alfa prohibitively expensive in my mind.

Why is this clarity so important?

Because it works the other way around as well.

When I think of Nikki, I think of an SEO expert.

And when I am asked about experts in SEO, I think of Nikki and a few others.

That top of mind awareness is powerful.

It’s where the money is.

Any other SEO expert who contacts me faces a big challenge.

He or she has to show me in great detail that they are worthy of being ranked alongside Nikki, Dan Thies, Leslie Rohde and Jerry West.

And it’s an even bigger challenge to create a preference because the space as SEO expert is filled in my mind. It would take a lot of time and it’s time I’m not ready to give willingly because I don’t feel any need to.

You have a simple choice.

You either stand for something and get remembered.

Or you stand for nothing and get forgotten and ignored.

What three words do you want customers to think about you?

It’s Your Turn

You’ve got the chance for a little self-promotion by leaving a short comment for your three words or phrase you want customers and clients to think when they hear your name.

No comment spam around keywords – it won’t be published.

You will know that you need to have a competitive advantage or competitive edge as the basis for your unique selling proposition.

Are you clear on the dimensions?

For years, I talked about this as the ABCD Rule.

Your Advantage needs to be Better, Cheaper or Different.

Then I came across an article I wrote on the difference between vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation where I went further.

I said your Advantage needs to be Better, Cheaper, Different, Easier or Faster.

This became the ABCDEF Rule.

This gives you five broad directions to think about when you are considering your customer value strategy and your customer value attribute map (also known as the strategy canvas in Blue Ocean Strategy). These will help you to be clear on which factors are your order winners and which are order qualifiers.