The Marketing 24-7 Podcast

The path to entrepreneurship is not easy; it takes a lot of work and determination. 

But if you really want something, nothing can stop your drive for success!

People come in all shapes and sizes when they're ready put their ideas into action--and that's what makes this industry so exciting because there’s always room at the table (literally).  You may have found yourself asking "what am I passionate about?" or wondering why everyone else doesn't seem as fascinated with business as you are.

I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. 

It is so hard. 

You pour so much of your life into this thing. And there are such rough moments in time that most people give up. 

I don't blame them. 

It's really tough. It consumes your life. I mean, if you've got a family and you're in the early days of a company, I can't imagine how one could do it.

I'm sure it's been done, but it's rough. 

It's pretty much an 18 hour per day job, seven days a week, certainly for a while. 

So, unless you have a lot of passion about this, you're not going to survive. 

You're going to give it up. 

Therefore, to succeed in business, you have to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you're passionate about.  Otherwise, you're not going to have the perseverance to stick it through.

That's half the battle right there.

In this episode of Marketing 24-7 Podcast, we will talk about novels and movies. 

And, how this relates to Unique Selling Propositions. 

More particularly, how  you can make your business so unique that it will attract people in your market niche to come to you, rather than you have to constantly chase them?

More often you might ask, what can I do to improve the pass on value of my business?

Increasing your business’ word of mouth value is to make it so interesting so cut through so different that people will feel the need to pass it on to their friends and peers. That's the essence of a great USP.

In this podcast, I will share with you a technique on how to do so. I put a lot of work into this for my business and also my client’s businesses. I will unveil something that will give you results in direct proportion to the amount of energy that you put in and create something unique and individual.

The worst number in business is one!

The best number in business is many. It starts with two, but as quickly as possible you should grow the number to many.

This podcast episode outlines why and how many is your friend.

Have you ever asked yourself how much your marketing content is worth?  

The eBooks you create. The infographics you design. The webinars you host.  How much are they worth? 

How do you value your marketing content?

You need to know, because contrary to your beliefs, they have value and your ability to apply the appropriate value matters.

The value of your marketing content isn’t measured in terms of money, but rather by how much information your prospects are willing to give up. 

Value, marketing content based on its usefulness, currency and unique information it is offering.

The information you request for a download is the price. 

Understanding how to price your content is the key to maximising your content strategy.

To simplify this a bit more, if your submission forms are asking for lots of information*, names, phone numbers, company size, title, roles, etc. then that’s a high price for the content. It may be worth it but know that it is expensive.

On the flip side, if you’re only asking for an email, that’s cheap.

YOUR CONTENT IS NOT FREE – let’s be clear, 

If you’re asking for any information as a condition of access to your content, your content is not free. The price is the information. The only time content is free, is when prospects can click a button and get it without inputting any information.

Now that we understand our content is not free.

• Rule #1; Don’t price your content too high.

Like the pricing of anything, value is key. Make sure that you know what you’re asking for is worth what you’re offering.  If you’re offering an infographic on general trends in the industry, asking for a lot of identifying personal and corporate information, may be too expensive and impede the volume of downloads

Too often companies overcharge for their content, requesting lots of information for content that’s not worth it.

• Rule #2; Don’t Price too low

Like over charging for content, you can under-charge for content. 

Undercharging for content happens when you don’t ask for enough information for something that is highly valuable. Maybe you’ve completed a robust assessment of the state of a market that can help your prospects plan for their upcoming year.  Only asking for an email is pricing it too low. 

You don’t want to give away such a valuable piece of content.

Pricing killer content too low can overwhelm your Sales Development Rep’s, marketing and more with unqualified, unidentified submissions that have little to no lead or opportunity value.

The key is to price right.

Understanding the value of your marketing content and pricing accordingly is key.  It’s not enough to just create content and just put it out there for everyone at a one price fits all strategy.

Consider offering content with varying price points.  

Create some free content, referring to more expensive content tucked inside. Create inexpensive content that requires little more than an email address.  Create higher value content that requires identifying information like size of an organisation, role, budget, etc. 

Finally, create expensive content. 

Expensive content is rich in data, insight, and value. Charge a lot for this content, require insights, identifying information, and even agreements to meet or a scheduled appointment.

When we evaluate content through the lens of value and price, it changes the game.  

It requires price to be included into the conversation. 

If we’re not getting the downloads or form submissions we want, is it the content or the price? 

We can no longer simply assume it was bad content, thus poor submissions or valuable content because of tons of form submissions. Price plays a role in conversions and getting the price right matters.

The Strategy:

1. Create content for all prices points, (free, cheap, moderate, expensive)
2. Be sure the value of the content is consistent with the price
3. Don’t overcharge or undercharge
4. Use varying priced content to drive interest to more expensive content
5. Continually evaluate your content to make sure the price is still fair

Old, out of date content may need to go on sale and only require an email.

Some of the meanest people I know are the wealthiest I know.

Strange isn't it, that while many wealthy consumers can easily afford high-fee cosmetic dentistry, luxury cars, first-class travel, designer fashions they find the price tags too big to swallow.

A $70,000.00 sticker on a car, a $35,000.00 fee quoted by the dentist, a $12,000.00 airline ticket are all so in-your-face. On the surface, the difference between the $70,000.00 car vs. the $35,000.00 car isn't so great; a car may feel like a car. On the plane, all the seats arrive at the same time. 

I am sure you have heard this logic before.

Oddly however, these same people are easily wooed by little luxuries. 

For what seems like a small uptick (which is a very big increase in profit margin) they can feel special without guilt. 

The fact that you can pick up two litres of ice cream at the supermarket for about the same price as a tiny cup of ice cream at a Gelateria is more disconnected. The experience is dramatically different. At the creamery, you pick out your flavour, your ground up cheesecake crust and chocolate chips, and watch your dessert being made for you on a granite slab. The price is still easily found in pocket or purse. It requires no thought, is done on impulse, feels good, and is easily rationalised. If I need had a hard day, I deserve it. 

These little indulgences do add up. 

Allow me to introduce you to a concept called luxflation.

Termed by author Pamela Danziger it is the inching up of price. A form of self-induced inflation, experienced by consumers willing to pay what seems a little more for much better experiences - when, in fact, that little more may be a 500% to 5,000% premium. 

It's ironic that the government, economists, and the media sweat bullets and display great angst over inflation creeping up by a half of a percent while consumers cheerfully accept 500% inflation in dozens of purchases every day. 

This is important to grasp, as it affects every business. 

If you cultivate these opportunities, these little indulgences can really add up for you in your business. 

Luxflation is not new. 

The story is now a legend of how "burger chains" use the point-of-sale strategy, where the cashier responds, "Do you want fries with that?" ATS (average transaction size) is one of the most important numbers to know, manage, and work at improving in many businesses, whether you sell burgers to frequent customers or motor vehicles to very infrequent repeat customers. 

Let's say we own an ice-cream stand where the cashier responds to each order by presenting the offer of a double flavour shot and an extra scoop of fresh fruit. If half say yes to the extra $4, and they serve 200 ice-creams a day, that's $400 added to revenue. But we may have increased the profit margin, invisibly, by much more. 

If we can alter the whole experience to support a higher price, still add the extra fruit, and add a big chocolate chip cookie, well, we might take our $9 average transaction to $15. On a grander scale, we may turn our ice-cream stand into a much-talked about, much preferred destination rather than just one of a dozen same-as places in town. 

Being in the little indulgence business in a big way, can lead to much bigger profits, but even to something more valuable: 

sustainable unique positioning in your customers' minds and lives.

Be your customers’ shrink and get them thinking about themselves!

There are two types of questions, discovery questions and provoking questions. Using these properly in sales and marketing is how to get your customers to think and self-reflect.

Effective questions get the customers to think about things differently, consider other options, and to shift their point of view. 

The whole sales call or presentation’s turning point is when the customer says to you or to themselves “Wow, I never considered that before” or “I’ve never thought about that” or “I never realised that was possible” or imagine if they said “No one has never asked me that before.” 

That is exactly what we should try and achieve in our marketing and sales calls from now on. 

It is based on the quality of your question.

Most of us are good with discovery questions often without knowing why.

What is a discovery question? 

Discovery Questions 

Discovery questions focus on “WHAT.” 

Discovery questions are designed to identify existing needs, problems, customer pain points, customer’s goals etc.

Discovery questions are designed to get to the known, to ferret out what the customer knows about their environment.

Here are some examples:

• What are you challenged with?
• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What happens when you miss XYZ?
• How will you be measuring success?
• What have been the results to date?
• Are you happy with your current environment?
• What tools are you using?

Discovery questions target the known. 

Our goal is to “discover” what is happening with the client to understand their world and offer a solution to their problem.

Discovery questions are great questions that provide the context we need to begin formulating a solution. Normally, however, not the best solution.

Why?

Because discovery questions don’t go far enough.

That is the point of provoking questions!

What is a provoking question? 

Provoking Questions 

Provoking questions take questioning to the next level. 

Provoking questions are designed to challenge the customer to get them thinking in ways they hadn’t thought before. Provoking questions are questions designed to get deeper into the thinking processes and the logic behind their choices. Provoking questions target what is and was behind the decisions of your customers and prospects.

It provides insight into what the customer or prospect knows, what they don’t know and what they will prioritise to make their decisions. 

Provoking questions help you and your customer or prospect evaluate what they are doing and why.

Here are some examples:

• Were you aware that . . . ?
• Did you know . . . ?
• Have you considered . . . ?
• Can I ask why you . . . ?
• Have you seen . . . ?
• Would you . . . ?
• What was the motive behind . . . ?

Provoking questions get the customer or prospect to think.

Effective questioning enables the customer to put unambiguous definition and great clarity around the issues and opportunities they are trying to address.

To be able to respond to great questions, the customer has to put structure, definition, and priorities around what they are trying to achieve.

Great questions can help the customer think about how they will make the decision.

Ask provoking questions AND discovery questions. 

Go deep, get to what and why. Challenge your customer or prospects to self-evaluate. 

The more YOU get them thinking about their choices and why they are doing what they are doing, the more they’re going to come to you for direction and guidance.

The girls all get prettier at closing time.

At least according to American country music artist Mickey Gilley in his 1976 hit. As opportunities, and the items they present, become scarcer, they are perceived as more valuable. 

This principle accounts for studies showing that: 

• Tasters rated cookies as more desirable when they were scarce rather than abundant; 

• Consumers rated phosphate detergents as better once their use was prohibited by government decree; 
• College students rated their cafeteria food higher when they learned that it would not be available to them for two weeks; 
• And young lovers rated themselves as more in love with their sweethearts as long as their parents tried to keep them apart.

Scarcity marketing is the idea of limiting the supply of a product, whether it be through restricting availability to a certain timeframe or decreasing production—oftentimes both.

The principle is sound—we all want what we can’t have and love to flaunt when we have something others don’t. Scarcity marketing takes advantage of this desire, creating demand through mystique and enticement. It’s an excellent way to ensure that a product is swept off the shelves with the hype that every brand wants to create.

We tend to associate limited availability with exclusivity. 

If things are difficult to get, we know it’s because they’re better than the things we already have.

As such, consumers use an item’s availability to decide on the quality of the product.

People don’t think about the fact that it’s a psychological reaction that’s causing us to want something. We know we want it. And because we need to make sense of this feeling, we assign the item positive qualities to justify our desire.

In his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini argues that the idea of potential loss plays a role in how we make decisions.

How often have you been more motivated by the prospect of losing something than gaining something of equal value?

More than a few times, right?

Take Black Friday as an example.

People wake up at inhuman hours. They get in line for hours in the freezing cold. Why? So they can get their hands on the new LEGO Star Wars set that’s on sale for $49.99 before it’s sold out. (I actually have no idea what Star Wars LEGOs cost so don’t take me up on this).

We know this phenomenon as the fear of missing out (FOMO).

68% of millennial consumers say they would buy something after experiencing FOMO, most often within 24 hours.

No one wants to feel left out, especially if a good deal is up for grabs. But there’s more to scarcity and FOMO than great deals.

Now that you know why you should use scarcity, let’s take a look at...

6 Scarcity Marketing to Try Today

1. The Few-Items-Left Tactic
2. The Limited-Introductory-Price Tactic
3. The Limited-Bonuses Tactic
4. The Order-Before-XX-Today Tactic
5. The Limited-Products Tactic
6. The Device-Limited-Sale Tactic

Use some of these strategies and focus on the exclusivity of your product. Get people to buy now instead of later (read: never) and watch your sales soar.

I think Tarantino is a genius.

Before his movie “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” was released, Quentin Tarantino said something very intriguing I believe all business people should take to heart in an interview he did with Deadline.

The context:

The plot of the movie is about a Hollywood actor and his stuntman in the late 60’s.

And to make sure the movie is as authentic as possible, Quentin literally wrote 5 episode scripts of the fictional TV show the actor starred in, in the movie (the audience who sees this movie will never see), as well as wrote out the main character’s entire fictional back story and filmography, film by film, as well as every single director he worked with, and all the little stories, quirks, and anecdotes on the sets he worked on, how he got his roles, who the casting directors were, which movies worked, which bombed, etc etc etc.

Why did he do all this extra work?

And, why did he do it even though the audiences won’t see it?

Because, as he put it in the interview:

“[The audience] need to know that I take this mythology this history seriously, and that there are answers to these questions. I don’t have to vomit it out but if you ask, I could tell you. The writer needs to know that mythology backwards and forwards. You need to be able to throw it off with the expertise of an expert.”

Lots of meat in that paragraph.

It’s like a crash course in writing school in some ways — especially for marketers, copywriters, and anyone in business wanting to dominate and control a niche.

But, like any skill, you still have to work hard at learning and mastering it first.

Thus, it’s completely incompatible for those who waste all day nattering on about nonsense in free Flakebook groups. Or the person who buys everything but uses nothing. Or the marketer who lacks the character to commit to anything that ejects them from their comfort zone.

i.e., 95+% of most so-called marketers.

The takeaway is that enough is never enough. If you really want to stand out in your business, you have to dig deep, pay attention to all of the little details and refine things striving for perfect.

Best summed up in a tale about another great Steve Jobs

He pored over every tiny detail of every product, every ad, every store, every thing related to Apple.

His attention to detail and craft came from his father who told him it was important to craft the backs of fences and cabinets even though they would never be seen.

Are you up for it?

There is no denying that the right mindset can do wonders. It is especially true when it comes to marketing and promoting your products to the market. It's important to think of marketing as an asset, rather than marketing as an expense.

If you want to make the most of your marketing opportunities, you need to make sure that every piece of marketing that you produce has the potential to be turned into an asset.

So how can you create assets out of your marketing? 

How to Curate Marketing Strategies from Existing Assets

Let's begin with an example of "Ben Settle" –an email marketing expert who successfully conglomerated the content of emails into books. Ben's books allowed people to learn how they can build a business by constantly emailing their database. 

Typically, Ben followed a simple technique of emailing his list every day to his clients. It helped him establish a relationship with these lists. Also, he was able to use these attempts to sell the offerings to various bits and pieces. 

But it doesn't end here, as he collected, curated, and collated all the emails over time. He placed them into books to show people a perfect example of building a business by using a database. Although he incorporated it as a marketing tactic, he curated and cobbled them together into other assets and sold them to improve profitability. 

Still not convinced? 

Let's look at another example of asset creation marketing. 

There's a charity called the "Center for Asylum Seekers and Refugees. One of the asylum activities is called "Second Harvest," where every Monday supermarket provides leftover food to the charity and the charity distributes it to their particular clients. 

Over time, it turns out, most Mondays and Tuesdays, when they distribute the food, there's always a little bit leftover. Instead of destroying or discarding it on Wednesdays, they started an activity called Eat, Share, And Connect.  The activity attracted volunteers (generally refugee volunteers) to join in and participate in cooking food by using the leftover food of their particular flavors and cuisine.

Soon it took the shape of a proper meet up and volunteer activity where all clients drop in and have an "Eat Share and Connect" Wednesday lunch.

These lunches have now become a perfect way to get sponsorships from people and obtain grants from people who pursue charitable work. This way, each share, connect Wednesday lunch time has become a brilliant showcase for everyone, including potential benefactors and consumers. 

Leveraging Assets to Strengthen Marketing

The Australian football league started an exercise 20 years ago with a game called the "dream time" game. It was an initiative where Richmond played Essendon, and it was aimed at celebrating, and commemorating the profile of indigenous footballers. 

Now the league has grown this game into an annual event and has become a popular attraction in Darwin. It attracts major sponsorships, large TV viewership, and heaps of promotion. Although they always play a football game, "Richmond versus Essendon," it is promoted as a special event called the dream time. 

In short, this annual event is an annual asset that is worth a lot of money to the Australian football league. 

Why Asset Creation is Beneficial 

Thinking about developing assets for your business is crucial for the growth of your business. Remember that you don't need to do anything revolutionary for creating assets. However, it would help if you focused on changing your thought pattern and mindset when creating a marketing piece.

Don't think of it as a tactic or a promotion. Consider it a campaign, which can evolve into a marketing asset. It will be an asset that can not only generate leads for your business but revenue as well.

Therefore, instead of taking marketing as an expense, think about how you can utilise this money to create a resource that can ultimately become an asset.

Bottom Line

All in all, assets are something that you can put a value to, can sell, or can call upon. And that's how the marketing system works and supports businesses. Thus, if you know how to create these assets, your business will be substantially better off whilst strengthening its identity. 

Most consultants post on their social media channels like episodes of a reality show — here’s what I think, here’s what I’m doing, here’s yet ANOTHER selfie.

That’s fine if it’s compelling, but in general it’s more effective to approach your social media channels as a magazine editor would.

Try to make your social media about more than just YOUR life.

Magazines aren’t all about their publisher’s life. 

Instead, they feature curated content that represents the viewpoint of the publisher and is designed to provide value to a specific target audience. Not every one of your social posts needs to be about you (and they probably shouldn’t be). 

Take a magazine approach and curate as much content as you create.

Curation of great content is about creating value for your followers. 

Magazines that are niche specific are making a revival.

Developing and curating niche content specific to your industry or market is a successful social media strategy. Doing so will make it easier to attract an audience and easier to provide value to them more frequently because you don’t have to create every single thing you share.

Become the purveyor of your niche's quality information.

Share stuff and watch your influence grow.

Important note!

I’m not suggesting you steal content from others. Share stuff with credit and drive attention to others — don’t pass it off as your own. No need to be an ass. But don't just flick out links - add interpretations, opinions, advice and your social media success will grow.

Treat your social media feed as your magazine!

If you’d like more social media strategies, visit my website petergianoli.com/social-strategy-for-consultants and download my latest resource. It's FREE!