Today I heard the following story … I am told it is true (but who knows?).

The key thing that this story demonstrates (highly effectively) is the value of marketing the benefits of your products and services to people over simply marketing features.

You know, features are things like “the car has tinted windows …”. People do not buy features they buy benefits. So, the benefit might be “… so you are protected from skin and eye damage from the sun.” Now that, I might buy!

OK, so the story goes that when new recruits join the US army they are offered life insurance. Now, mostly these are pumped up 18 year olds who believe they are invincible. So, this is NOT an easy sell! And, in fact, on average only about 10% of recruits take up the offer.

However, one Captain consistently achieved an astonishing, near 100%, sales record from his groups of new recruits. So, one day, one of the senior officers stood at the back and listened to what he said …

He explained that the recruits could get life insurance if they wanted to. It was optional. If they did choose to get it, then their beneficiaries would get $200,000 if they were killed and if they did NOT get it, their beneficiaries would only get $6,000.

OK, so that told them all of the features. Now he hit them with a potential benefit … he said “Now, which bunch do you think they will send in to battle first?”

I just added them up … in the last 24 hours, I received 29 emails pushing something at me. Something that the writer thought I needed to buy … now … quick … before their special limited offer expired. And, in case you wondered, this excludes the complete spam emails wanting to send me millions of dollars from my forgotten, recently deceased aunt in Nigeria.

And, do you know how many of these bargains I am going to take up? Yep, you probably guessed … none!

And, you know what, it’s not just me!

In the “Wild West” when the snake oil salesman rode into town, it was an event. People turned out to see what was happening and to listen to this strange and new person. It was entertainment for them.

Over time, the number of “promotions” that we have had fired at us have increased almost beyond belief. There’s radio and TV and billboards and adverts in magazines and newspapers and, the last time I was on a plane, they even had adverts on the back of the seat in front pushing something at me. And then there’s the Internet …

Yankelovich, a market research firm, estimated that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 advertising messages a day. Now that is up to 5,000.

It is no surprise that adverts are no longer entertainment and fun. We now fight to stop them getting into our lives. We use pop-up blockers, junk mail filters, and devices like TiVo to skip TV ads. We do NOT like being promoted to!

So, why do companies keep doing it? Well mostly because they don’t know any better. Advertising has been the prime way of them getting their products and service sold for a long time now. But things are changing … we’ve had enough … we are turning away from the adverts … we ignore the billboards … we run from being promoted at!

So, how does a business that wants to get sales and wants to “get its message out there” do that if all of us “consumers” are running away from the old-fashioned “push” marketing methods?

By pulling!

People these days are looking for information and advice and support and assistance and help. If you give them what they are looking for … valuable assistance, then, when they are ready to buy, they will come back to you to buy. They will “pull” you towards them.

Now, you might be saying, this is nothing new. People have always respected others who gave them good advice and help and have always been willing to give them their business. Yes, that is true. However, what is also true is that finding this valuable assistance these days is like looking for hens teeth! When you last went into a store and asked for some advice about a product, did you get any? Did the salesperson know anything about the product? Did they want to spend the time finding out what was important for you and helping you get it? If you can answer yes, then you are exceptionally lucky. For the majority of us, this service disappeared long ago.

But it’s what we want! So, if you give it to people … they will give you their business.

So, what can you do, today, to make some of your valuable knowledge, experience and opinions available to your potential customers?

When is a Chef not a Chef? Jamie McIntyre recounts the story of his friend the Chef who moved from Sydney to Noosa to get a better quality of life. Moving to Noosa might not give you a better quality of life … but marketing yourself and your offerings over the Internet might. This short clip is taken from Jamie’s Internet Marketing training. I hope you enjoy it!

P.T. Barnum once said “Without promotion, something terrible happens … nothing!”

I was reminded of this quote today and it got me thinking. Yes, of course, P.T. Barnum was right, no business will EVER succeed without “promotion”. If somebody drives up to your house in a huge truck and drops off thousands of dollars worth of the world’s best ever product onto your driveway … and you just look at it … does it sell itself? Of course not. If you just look at it, then it will just sit there. Even the best product or the best service in the world will NOT PROMOTE ITSELF!

And, I’m sure that you can think of many examples where less than perfect products have become hugely successful. They have achieved that through being promoted … through marketing.

So, I accept wholeheartedly that P.T. Barnum was right about promotion.

But, there’s a problem …

We do NOT like being promoted to!

If a stranger comes up to you in the street and says “Hey, I’ve got a great deal, just for you!” or is wearing a t-shirt that says in big letters “Make your fortune in the next six month? Ask me how?”, or if we come across yet one more website that says something like “I made $100,000 in 3 months, enter your email address and I’ll show you how you can too”, we run … fast … in the opposite direction.

We’ve had enough of the “get rich quick” stories. We’ve learned not to believe them anymore. Sure, I am NOT suggesting for a second that anybody out there is lying. Far from it. I’m certain that the story would stand up to careful cross-examination in Court! BUT, I don’t believe they are telling us the WHOLE story. Sure, it probably is a “great deal” … but only for somebody that has a certain set of specific skills and has the time, money and passion to see it through. And, yes, I’m sure that guy did earn $100,000 in 3 months. It probably cost him $85,000 though and he was only able to make any money at all because he had spent the previous 5 years building up a huge email list. So, yes, it is possible …. but only when you have all your ducks lined up! (Actually, I want to come back to that another time, because ducks don’t fully line up … that’s for another day!).

So, we don’t want to be promoted to.

But, despite that, we are looking for solutions to our problems. And maybe, just maybe, you might possibly be able to follow what the guy who made the $100,000 did. And, just maybe this is exactly what you need for your current circumstances and your beliefs and desires and skills and knowledge. Maybe it is a perfect fit! And, even though only $15,000 of that was profit … maybe that matches your income goal … maybe this really is the perfect opportunity for you?

But maybe you already rejected it because you don’t like being promoted to?

And that’s our challenge these days. And, just to be clear, by “our”, I mean business-people. Because we know that we have a product or a service that can genuinely help people. For the right people, in the right circumstances, at the right time, it really is … the RIGHT solution. (By the way, if your product or service does NOT genuinely help people, then change something … now!)

So, on the one hand, we HAVE to promote our product/service but we know that nobody wants to be promoted to. Is there a solution to this dilemma?

Absolutely!

Just enter your email address ….  ha ha! No! Just joking … you probably don’t like being promoted to either!

Think about this for a second …

Imagine you had a problem. Let’s pick a simple one. Let’s say that you have a problem because your camera has just packed up, just before you head off on vacation. It was old anyway, and it had given you good service. But you want a camera for your vacation. So, what do you do?

Well, I was in this situation a while back. I went to my local camera shop. Things had changed enormously since I had last bought a camera. So, I asked the guy behind the counter for some help. Do you know what he said? He said “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about cameras, why don’t you surf the Web and then come back and we can get the camera that you want?” I vowed never to return to that shop. I was looking for advice and information relevant to my problem and he couldn’t give it to me. I was looking for somebody who would be genuinely interested in steering me towards buying the right camera. I did surf the web and I did the research myself and identified the camera that seemed the best for me and bought it over the Internet.

I may be unique (and in some respects I like to think that I am! ) But in many respects I believe I am just another human being. If I have a problem then I will search out possible solutions. If I have to spend money to solve the problem then that is fine, as long as I believe that I am getting value for my money.

So, back to promotion and marketing … how does this all fit together?

Well, these days, to be successful, business-people have to focus their promotions on helping people. Because they realise that people like being helped and they also realise that people accept that there may be a financial exchange involved. They just want to make sure that they are getting fair value for their money.

And, one of the really great things about doing business these days is that getting information out there for people to find has never been easier. We “Google” our problem and up come heaps of useful (and sometimes not so useful) responses.

So, if you are in business today then promote, promote, promote … but remember to do it in a way that genuinely helps people … not rams your sales message down their throat!