Tag: Jay Levinson

Asking Permission

One of the biggest problems of mass-market advertising is that it vies for the attention of prospects by interrupting them. That’s why TV commercials have long been called "dream interrupters," because that’s exactly what they are. The TV show is your dream. The TV commercial interrupts that dream. Not good.

Of course, if nobody else is interrupting the audience, the interruption will be effective for you. But everyone and their second cousins are interrupting the audience to the point that there’s an interruption overflow. And that’s why guerrillas one and all are rapidly warming up to permission marketing.

The name of this game is to get your prospects to point to themselves as hot prospects. They literally agree to learn more about your company and its benefits. Permission marketing can transform strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. The first and main rule in permission marketing is that it truly is based on selfishness: Prospects will grant you permission to market to them only if they know exactly how they’ll benefit.

Seth Godin, with whom I’ve coauthored The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, Guerrilla Marketing for the Home-Based Business and Get What You Deserve! How to Guerrilla Market Yourself, admits that mass media advertising will remain a potent weapon.

"Winston tastes good… ." Can you complete that sentence? Of course you can. It’s "… like a cigarette should." And yet nearly three decades have passed since that slogan was advertised. It would cost far beyond your budget to implant such a slogan in the minds of consumers today. Maybe Nike can afford it. And Budweiser. But the list is very tiny, indeed. It does not include many affiliate marketers.

I agree with Godin when he says that marketing is a contest for people’s attention. There is so much interrupting these days that people have learned to ignore interruptions. TV is cluttered with commercial messages beyond belief, and the Web is even worse.

That means that the challenge of the day is to persuade consumers to volunteer their attention.

Tell them a bit about your company and how your offerings benefit them. Then let them tell you a bit about themselves. Then tell them some more about your company. They’ll tell you some more about themselves. Over time you create a beneficial learning relationship. They want to know what you have to say. That’s why permission marketing is marketing without any interruptions.

Of course, you’ve still got to flag the attention of your prospects, but once you have it, you can turn it into permission, then turn that into learning, then turn that into trust. Once they trust you, they can buy what you sell.

Godin says there are four rules of permission:

  1. Permission must be granted. If it isn’t, you can’t assume you have permission to market. Buying names and addresses, then sending direct mail, is not permission. It’s spamming. And guerrillas do not spam. They know spamming litters the marketing scene and is usually ignored.
  2. Permission is selfish. Your prospects will grant permission to you only if they see clearly that there’s something in it for them. You’ve got about two or three seconds to communicate what that something is.
  3. Permission can be revoked. As easily as permission is granted, it can be withdrawn. On the other hand, it can intensify over time. The intensity depends upon the quality of interaction between you and your customers.
  4. Permission can’t be transferred. Think of marketing as dating. You just can’t give a friend the authority to go out on a date in your place.

Once people give you permission to market to them – then what? Then they want to get to know you better. They want you to solve their problems. They want you to improve their lives.

Why does permission marketing make sense? These days, people have the money to spend on products or services, but they don’t have the time to evaluate your offerings and learn why you are trustworthy. That’s why online marketing is so powerful. You can use email to communicate with people frequently, quickly and unobtrusively – if they have given you permission. Get it at your website. If you list yours, be prepared for a barrage of permissions.

To get these permissions, you’ve got to remember that the Internet is not television. It is direct mail with free stamps. It allows you to create rich relationships. Web banners will wither on the online vine while email marketing becomes the real killer application of online marketing.

Interruption marketing is coming to a dead end in the road, and the future will belong only to those companies that have embarked upon a permission marketing campaign. Will yours be one of them? I hope so.

 

JAY CONRAD LEVINSON is the acknowledged father of guerrilla marketing with more than 14 million books sold in his Guerrilla Marketing series, now in 41 languages. His website is GuerrillaMarketingAssociation.com

The Guerrilla Attitude

The attitude of a guerrilla affiliate toward marketing is dramatically different from that of a non-guerrilla affiliate. More than 90 percent of life is about attitude and an even higher percentage of marketing is all about attitude. It’s one of the first things that your prospects and customers will notice about you. The way they’ll know it is through your marketing efforts. If you don’t do much marketing, people will be unaware of your attitude regardless of how winning it may be. Private attitudes do not equate with profits. You’ve got to go public with your attitude.

Let people sense it through your aggressiveness in the marketing arena. It will be clearly communicated through the visibility granted you by marketing. When it’s time to decide on a purchase, they’ll be drawn to companies with an attitude far more than invisible companies that don’t actively and proudly express theirs.

Your attitude will also be indicated by the professionalism of your marketing materials. If they look shabby, that shabbiness will become part of your attitude. If they inspire confidence, that will express your attitude.

The reach of your marketing also reflects your attitude and so does the frequency. Naturally, your commitment to your program conveys an attitude. Your consistency expresses it as well. Keep switching your media and message, your niche and format, and people will be unclear about your attitude, assuming you’re not even sure of yourself.

Of course, you can’t succeed on attitude alone. Marlboro may not be the best-tasting cigarette in the world, but it certainly has the right attitude. Same for Budweiser compared with other beers. Many product category leaders succeed with attitude more than excellence; attitude more than low price; and attitude more than lavish spending. Every car made can get you from point A to point B, but some do it with a more stylish attitude.

As an affiliate, your attitude must come shining through in all of your marketing. It will come across by what you say, how you say it, where you say it and how frequently you say it. Even the world’s most winning attitude is for naught if it’s not being transmitted. That’s why guerrillas communicate with a big attitude to compensate what they lack in a big budget.

The website of a guerrilla affiliate reflects that affiliate’s attitude in its design, its straightforwardness, its focus on the visitor, its copy and its overall professionalism. There are endless possibilities to convey your attitude with your website and certainly with your blog. That means that there are endless possibilities to get egg on your face. Whatever you do to communicate your precious attitude, do it right or don’t do it at all.

There’s a huge, yawning gap of which you must be aware. It’s the gap between what you think your attitude is and what your prospects and customers think it is. Your job – and it’s not even a tough job – is to close that gap, to manifest your attitude so clearly that prospects and customers think of you the same way you think of yourself.

An attitude that is mandatory if you’re to be a true guerrilla affiliate is outwardness. Inward focus works against you when it comes to marketing. Save that for your analyst’s couch, and shine your light outward- bound when you’re marketing.

The perception that you require is the knowledge that your marketing is not about you. It is not about your business. It is not about your product or your service. I hope you’re clear on that, because if you’re not, you’ll blur the other insights necessary for you to master guerrilla marketing.

There is always a very good chance that what you have to offer will mean a lot to your target audience. And there’s a small but real chance that it will mean a great deal to them right now. Those simple facts ought to mean a lot to you before you plunge headlong into a marketing attack. If you can adapt your mindset to just what your offering can mean to your prospects, you’re thinking properly.

If you’ve got the right attitude about marketing, you’re nearly fixated on providing your customers with precisely what they need. One of the things they do need, as do all members of humanity, is a sense of identity. If you operate from the inside of their minds, you’ll be able to make yourself part of their identity. The fact that they do business with you and have a lasting relationship with you will become part of their identity and it will be very clear to their colleagues and friends.

Since your attitude as a guerrilla affiliate is centered around your customers, other facets of your business will follow suit. Your service will pick up and customers will notice. The people you hire will share your attitude, and again, customers will notice. The way you run your business will never seem stale to them because you’ll be innovativing in ways that deliver customer bliss.

Doing it means you can see the future before it unfolds, giving you an immense competitive advantage. It shows you beyond doubt that the best way to engage in customer-oriented marketing is to continuously innovate and to be the very essence of flexibility. In the past, staying with the tried-andtrue was the way to go. In the future, in which today’s present resides, that’s not the way to go.

A guerrilla affiliate knows that focusing on your customer is the way to go, and that "business as usual" now means "business as unusual" if you’re to be a guerrilla with the right attitude, seeing things from your customers’ point of view, meeting and then exceeding their expectations.

That calls for knowing where you’re headed, what your competitors are doing and what your prospects’ customers are thinking. Then it calls for you to demonstrate the attitude that proves you can see things from their standpoint.

 

JAY CONRAD LEVINSON is the acknowledged father of guerrilla marketing with more than 14 million books sold in his Guerrilla Marketing series, now in 41 languages. His website is gmarketing.com.

The Best Intentions

Effective self-marketing is the quickest path to success.

Whether you know it or not, you’re marketing yourself every day – to lots of people. You’re marketing yourself in a quest to make a sale, warm up a relationship, get a job, get connected, get something you deserve. You’re always sending messages about yourself.

Guerrillas control the messages that they send. It’s all about intention. Guerrillas live intentionally. Non-guerrillas send unintentional messages, even if those messages sabotage their overall goals in life. They want to close a sale for a consulting contract, but their inability to make eye contact or their confusing email message turns off the prospect.

Avoid Unintentional Messages

Unintentional messages erect an insurmountable barrier. Your job is to be sure there is no barrier. There are really two people within you – your accidental self and your intentional self. Most people are able to conduct about 95 percent of their lives by intent. But that’s not enough.

It’s the other 5 percent that can get you in trouble – or in clover. I’m not talking about phoniness here. The idea is for you to be who you are and not who you aren’t – to be aware of what you’re doing, aware of whether or not your actions communicate ideas that will help you get what you truly deserve.

Who do you market to without even realizing it? Employees. Customers. Prospects. Teachers. Parents. Children. Bosses. Prospective employers. Mates. Prospective mates. Friends. Sellers. Landlords. Neighbors. Professionals. Members of the community. The police. Service people. Family. Bankers. These people can help you or stop you from getting what you deserve. You can influence them with how you market yourself.

To market yourself properly, answer these three questions:

  1. Who are you now – if friends described you, what would they say? Be honest.
  2. What do you want out of life? Be specific for the best results.
  3. How will you know when you’ve reached your goals?

If you can’t answer these questions, you’re doomed to accidental marketing and spending your life reacting instead of responding, and the odds will be against you reaching your goals.

How do you send messages and market yourself right now? With your appearance, to be sure. You also market with your eye contact and body language, your habits, your speech patterns. You market yourself in print with your letters, email, website, notes, faxes, brochures and other printed material. You also market yourself with your attitude and ethics.

Again, you may not be aware of it, but people are constantly judging and assessing you by noticing many things. You must be sure your marketing message doesn’t conflict with your dreams. What are people using to base their opinions, to make their decisions about you? I’ve come up with more than 30 variables, but here are the top 10:

  1. Clothing
  2. Enthusiasm
  3. Neatness
  4. Tone of voice
  5. Energy level
  6. Eye contact
  7. Writing ability
  8. Spelling
  9. Business card
  10. Availability

You’re fully aware of your intentional marketing, and you invest time, energy and imagination into it, not to mention money. But you may be undermining that investment if you’re not paying attention to things that matter to others even more than what you say. These are things such as keeping promises, punctuality, honesty, demeanor, respect, gratitude, sincerity, feedback, initiative and reliability. People also notice passion – or the absence of it. They notice how well you listen to them.

How to Market Yourself

Now that you know these things, what should you do? Ben Franklin said that three of the hardest things in the world are diamonds, steel and knowing yourself. Here’s a three-step plan to get you started on the road to self-awareness and self-marketing acumen.

  1. Write a positioning statement about yourself. Identify just who you are and the positive things that stand out most about you.
  2. Identify your goals. Put into writing the three things you’d most like to achieve during the next three months, three years and 10 years.
  3. State your measuring stick. Write the details of how you will know when you’ve achieved your goals. Be brief and specific.

To guerrilla market yourself, simply be aware of and in control of the messages you send. Do so and your goals will be a lot easier to attain.

Look at your policies, procedures and daily management practices. What behaviors are you measuring and rewarding? Examine your purchasing and pricing practices – these impact your brand far more than anything you might say in your ads. Finally, look at your website through the eyes of your customers – you’ll begin to glimpse the truth of your brand.

Taking Action

Examine the soul of your company through your daily actions, not your beliefs, and you’ll soon be able to write branding ads that will ring like a bell. Behold the keys to successful brand writing:

Truth in advertising. Bad ads are filled with phrases you like to say about yourself. Good ads are filled with what your customers say about you when you’re not around. To be successful, your branding ads must sharply echo the word on the street about your company. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, got it right when he said, "It has always seemed to me that your brand is formed primarily not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does." You’ll discover the truth behind your brand when you can explain why customers come back.

Overstatement is passé. Offer proof to back up what you say, even if it lies only in your customers’ experience or assumptions. Branding isn’t just about the facts: People buy brands with their hearts as well as their heads. Brand loyalty is built on the fact that our purchases remind us – and tell the world around us – who we are.

Search for evocative words. Sniff out overused phrases. Stimulate customers’ minds with thoughts more interesting than the ones they were previously thinking.

Be consistent. The consistent use of the same colors and fonts is often called "branding." Your brand should remain constant in all communications from your company, including your website, email, brochures, business cards and so on.

Brands are built on consistency, the roots of which are patience and attention to detail. It’s going to take a lot longer to build your brand than you feel it should. Here’s the bottom line: If you think you’re going to be able to measure brand progress at the end of 12 short months, you’re dreaming. Brand development isn’t measured in months, but in years. Good luck with your brand.

Remember always that you are your own brand, and that if you’re not guerrilla marketing yourself, you are falling short of what you ought to be doing.

 

JAY CONRAD LEVINSON is the acknowledged father of guerrilla marketing with more than 14 million books sold in his Guerrilla Marketing series, now in 41 languages. His websites can be found at www.gmarketing.com and www.guerrillamarketingassociation.com.