How to Be a Marketing
Genius, Part 2
by Michael Masterson
Skilled marketers are consistently among the
highest paid individuals in any industry. They earn high
salaries, extraordinary bonuses, and the respect and admiration
of colleagues and competitors. Marketers who master their
trades are all but guaranteed a life of wealth, security,
respect, and satisfaction.
Today, I am going to show you how you can
become a marketing genius by learning three of the fundamental
principles behind the psychology of selling.
The First Principle: The Difference Between
Wants and Needs
In today's consumer-driven economy, it's easy
to mistake a want for a need. How many times have you heard
one of the following statements:
* "Sally needs a new wardrobe. The clothes
she's wearing make her look silly."
* "John hates the way his hair looks. He says he needs
a better barber."
* "I simply have to have that new handbag!"
* "We need a bigger house."
* "We need a nicer car."
* "We need a bigger lawn."
None of those things are needs -- as in, something
you can't live without. Our needs are really few and simple.
Air, water, food, shelter, transportation (sometimes), and
clothing (usually). Everything else we buy is based on our
wants.
And even when it comes time to purchase needs,
like food and clothing, our buying decisions are usually
based on wants. (We want a certain type of bread, a specific
brand of clothes, a house in a particular style, etc.)
When you realize that your customers don't
need your product or service, you recognize that the way
to convince them to buy it is to stimulate their desire
for it. The most effective way to do that in your advertising
is to:
* Promise your prospective customer (usually
implicitly) that taking a certain action (buying your product)
will result in the satisfaction of a desire (want).
* Create a picture in your prospect's mind
of the way he will feel when that desire is satisfied.
* Make specific claims about the benefits
of your product and then prove those claims to your prospect.
* Equate the feeling your prospect desires
(the satisfaction of a want) with the purchase of your product.
The media doesn't matter. Wherever you find
your market -- on television or radio, in magazines or newspapers,
at home reading his mail or on the Internet -- the basic
process is the same. The moment you forget this first principle
-- that you are selling to wants rather than needs -- your
marketing will fail.
The Second Principle: The Difference Between
Features and Benefits
Advertising teachers like to use the example
of a No. 2 pencil to illustrate this important principle.
A pencil has certain features:
* It is made of wood.
* It has a specific diameter.
* It contains a lead-composite filler of a certain type.
* It usually has an eraser at the end.
These features describe the objective qualities
of the pencil. So if buying were a rational process, selling
would be a matter of identifying the features of your product.
But we already know from our first principle
that buying is an emotional process. And that means you
must express the features of your product in some way that
will stimulate desire. You do that by converting features
into benefits. For example, the features listed above might
be converted into the following benefits:
* Easy to sharpen.
* Comfortable to hold.
* Creates an impressive line.
* Makes correcting easy.
Of course, this is only the tip of the beneficial
iceberg. I've conducted workshops on features and benefits
using a No. 2 pencil that have resulted in the identification
of more than 200 benefits.
Mastering the skill of converting features
to benefits is essential for every future marketing genius.
The Third Principle: The Difference Between
Benefits and Deeper Benefits
The reason some marketers do a better job
than others is because they understand the difference between
benefits and deeper benefits.
In our example, for instance, what might be
the deeper benefit of having a pencil that sharpens easily?
To figure that out, the master marketer asks himself, "Who
is my target customer? And why, exactly, does he want little
things (like sharpening pencils) to be easy?"
Of course, there's no single answer to such
questions. It depends entirely on who that target customer
is. If he's a busy executive, his deeper reasons are going
to be different than if she's a busy housewife.
Perhaps the executive wants more ease because
he's buried in minutia. Perhaps he senses that if he could
just get a little more spare time in his day he could catch
up with his work. And if he could finally get his inbox
conquered and his e-mail cleaned up, perhaps he could write
that memo or make that phone call that would boost his career.
The master marketer who understands these
deeper motives -- the desire to be more successful at work,
for example -- can create stronger sales copy because he
will be appealing to emotions that are closer to his customer's
core desires.
The example I'm using is, admittedly, farfetched.
But I'll continue to push it to make the point.
Our master marketer has dug a bit below the
surface now. He recognizes a deeper desire than merely ease
and he's going to appeal to it. But before he does, he stops
and deconstructs the deeper benefit. He asks himself more
questions: "Why does my customer, this busy executive,
want more success? Is it because he wants a better salary?
And if so, why is that? Is it because he wants a nicer home?
And if he wants a nicer home, why? To please his family?
To impress his friends? And why does he want to please his
family and impress his friends?"
The marketer who can figure out the answers
to questions like these holds his prospect's heart in his
hand.
(Ed. Note: Michael's essay today was taken
from "Automatic Wealth: 6 Steps to Financial Independence,"
the book he is writing for John Wiley & Sons. It was
also part of his presentation at this year's Wealth-Building
Bootcamp. If you couldn't attend the Bootcamp, you'll be
happy to know that all of the sessions were professionally
recorded and are now available on CD or VCR. If you're interested
in learning how you can get the complete ETR Home Study
Package delivered to your door -- including the handbook,
the handouts, and the PowerPoint presentations that in-person
attendees received -- Click here )
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