I came upon Seth Godin’s latest blog posting through following him on Twitter earlier today, the posting was titled "Put On A Show". – and serves up one of the best metaphor’s on why certain businesses work like crazy while others languish in obscurity.
By the way, if you haven’t taken 10-seconds and setup a Twitter account yet, go ahead and do it – I guarantee you’ll become a frequent user. Once you’ve signed up, head over at follow me at here.
Just when I thought I would make it through the day without having to stop, think and reflect – along comes this post that does such a great job of hitting the mark explaining why certain people are so good at selling their agenda whether that agenda be a business idea, a political idea, or a personal idea — they put on a better show.
Just like great movies, TV shows or theatre, your show must be convincing, authentic, simple, clear, compelling and consistent. Whether you seek to brand yourself to an employer, member of the opposite sex or venture capitalists – you’ve got to…
1. Have a crystal clear purpose and message
2. Know your audience
3. Believe in your message
4. Empathasize with your audience
5. Deliver the best possible message that aligns with their interests
6. Demonstrate consistency
7. Be willing to defend your position
8. Perfect the stage – attention to detail
Specific to the field of online marketing, planning your entry into a given marketplace should all lead up to an ongoing theatre of shows.
Come to think of it – the upcoming launch of our highly successful information product marketer’s private members site InfoMarketer’s Zone http://www.infomarketerszone.com is following the script of a show, specifically:
First, you begin with the concept of the show drawn from a mixture of market desire, competitive gap, and your ability and desire to put on the show (do business in that marketplace).
Second, you attract and warm up the audience…laying the groundwork for the perfect show is initial advertising, word-of-mouth buzz, promotion right up to the theatre experience. For you, what is the compelling content and messaging that will inform people of your upcoming show? You could build momentum through ads, social networking, blogging, article and report writing, audio programs, teleseminars all built around compelling information creating anticipation around the upcoming show.
Third, you develop the product in a unique way giving you advantage on your competition so that you have something really unique and different to promote. The problem or desire you fulfill may not be different (and probably won’t be), but you better have something extra-special to offer your audience. For example, how many movies have their been targeting our desire to experience romance or that get us to laugh…yet each one promotes a different way of delivering us to that final experience.
Fourth, you lay the foundation for positive buzz and word-of-mouth by bringing in early adopters, beta testers, testimonials and friendly customers to get your show kicked off in the right direction
Fifth, you plan your product launches and marketing campaigns as if they were events. Those who simply come out with a new release of a product and announce it to their own customers and perhaps do a few press releases are far less effective than those that create a show…think a Microsoft or Apply product launch where there is a mega-show attached with the announcement.
Sixth, you use feedback from each show to plan and improve your next show…product launches and marketing campaigns always tell you many things so you learn and move on to the next one making it even better.
Through this entire process it is ESSENTIAL that you remain authentic with your message and you accomplish this through empathy.
You’ve heard the saying "don’t critisize a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes", the same thing goes for picking markets, products and marketing campaigns. Don’t plan your show until you intimately know your target market, what they want, what prevents them from having what they want, what they fear and where they would rather be.
By basing your online business upon a strong empathy of your customer base and putting together your show you can dominate your marketplace.
