Scend Success 3 Step Marketing Process

When we sit down with a new client to talk strategy, I hear the same two things over and over again. One is a statement and the other is a question.

First the statement…

We have little to no money to market ourselves.

Second the question…

How do I get my name out there on that small of a budget?

Well, let me say congratulations to you for taking the first big step and seeking help and advice and striving to be the master of your own marketing.

That is an important step we find many small business owners, entrepreneurs and independent sales professionals miss.

In its simplest form, marketing is a 3 step process that is often reversed and convoluted by folks who make guesses and are advised by people who aren’t qualified to dispense marketing advice.

I will outline for you here the Scend Success 3 Step Marketing Process:

STEP ONE: WHO (define target)

Identify a narrowly defined group of people who need/want what you have. Not a group of people you want to sell it to. The difference is huge.

You can have multiple targets but each marketing campaign needs to only focus on that narrow target.

Pick one narrow group to focus on at a time.

Look at your current clients or if you have no clients, look at the clients of your competitors.

You want to be the only choice to a small group of people and NOT for everyone else. You don’t have the budget or the product or the horsepower to be all things to all people. If you try you will go out of business – FAST.

Find a group that has an Otaku (more than passion - less than an obsession) for your product. Out of those people find the ones that you can sell to more often and who you can up sell.

Your group must be easy to find and reach, able to afford your product and have shown a willingness to fork out cash for this kind of product in the past.

Get as tight as you can, then broaden from there.

STEP TWO: WHAT (Irresistible Offer)

Now that you have a target that has shown some interest in what we have to sell and has demonstrated a willingness and ability to buy…we have to decide what we are selling.

Notice we didn’t start with what we were selling. If you trying take a product you already have and force it on a group – you will be unsuccessful.

That’s like taking one of those red and blue sphere baby toys with holes in different shapes and trying to fit one of the yellow shapes into a hole that doesn’t match just cause you want to put it there. Just because you have the shape and want to stick it in there doesn’t mean it will work.

Now…getting back to what we are selling? Let’s just say for this example we are a hand-crafted furniture store. What do we sell?

If you say you’re selling hand-crafted furniture you are DEAD.

No one buys hand crafted furniture; no one buys machine crafted furniture. People buy a place to sit, a place to relax, a get away, a look, an environment.

Room-To-Go is so successful because they got out of the FURNITURE business and they created the ROOM business. No one was even in the ROOM business – so they cleaned up, they made billions, sold millions of rooms.

WHY???

Cause people wanted rooms they didn’t want furniture. They had a big empty room in their house – they had a problem. They needed it solved….they don’t know how to create a nice looking room with coordinating furniture. So Rooms-To-Go made it quick, easy and cheap for them to solve their problems.

Now is RTG for everyone???

Absolutely not – they do have a mass appeal product but…

I don’t know many interior designers that buy or design their rooms from RTG. The people that are looking for high-end furniture don’t shop there either.

But…that’s ok with RTG. They know there are plenty of the other folks that they can help solve their ROOM problem and make big money doing it.

Take away here: Exclude some to get more.

You need to be in a business that isn’t furniture. You need to create a package or a widget that people understand. That solves a problem or creates interest – something that is unique so you can create an Apples to Oranges comparison

If you do this, no one else can compare to you because you have something no one else has.

If it has enough perceived value you can remove your self from a price game altogether. You can be higher than all your competition and still steal the lion’s share of business because your prospect can’t compare you to anyone else…You become the obvious choice – because you are unique.

This needs to be an irresistible offer that is designed just for your target market. One that they can not refuse.

This “widgetizing” is why it is so important to have a very well defined target. Create a widget that is specific to their needs and title the offering with a benefit driven title.

People buy benefits, resolutions to pain and solutions – as we mentioned above.

Package bonuses that have low overhead cost into the offering – Information works great for this because it is so cheap.

An example is to create a report or small book/pamphlet on how to coordinate room colors with furniture.

…or how to measure a room to pick the right size furniture

…or how to tell cheap furniture from quality

…or how to decorate a room on a shoe string budget.

Create these and give them away for FREE. Offer them in all your advertising to find interested prospects or offer this widget as a bonus for taking a desired action.

Any marketing you engage in must offer this widget; deliver your Gravitational Positioning Statement (What makes the product irresistable to the target in terms of them) and a specific call to action.

Pick one and test it for a few months. Then change just one little thing and test again.

Refine until the offer works like crazy!

STEP THREE: WHERE (media)

This is the part most people get confused on. They want to jump right to this without doing the tough stuff first. What ends up happening is that if you start here (which is where most people start), nothing you do can be effective. Any advertising and marketing you place or do will fail miserably.

Now that you have a very specific target and a very specific offer they can’t refuse and you’ve packaged and titled these in a way that clearly states their benefit in terms of them. (always talk in terms of what is in it for them – forget about you) it is much easier to find out how to reach them.

What do these people do, where are they – can you get enough business locally? Are there enough of them in your surrounding area? These are the questions you have to find the answers to.

This is just scratching the surface – if it were that easy everyone would be rich. This is a frame-work for being successful.

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