Inside Your Eyelids

This is what good marketers see when they close their eyes:Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and announce to the world around us – who we are.A tribe is a group of self-selected insiders.Identify a tribe, (an affinity group.)Develop that tribe.Market to the tribe you have developed.Gathering your tribe is easy. (A.) In your first encounter, make sure they win big. Give them far more than they gave you. (B.) Speak to your tribe about what they ALREADY care about.All of the above can be summarized in two words: Identity Reinforcement.Entertainment is the currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.Television and radio, YouTube videos, blog posts and social media deliver results because they deliver entertainment.Information is medicine. Entertainment is a spoonful of sugar.Reaching the customer is mechanical, a question of media selection.Convincing the customer is artistic, a question of message creation.Reaching the right people is easy. Saying the right thing is hard.Online, when you target the right customer at the zero moment of truth you are fishing with a hook for today’s customer.At the zero moment of truth online, the best hooks are information, availability, and free shipping.Customers seeking information have not yet chosen a preferred provider.Customers seeking availability want the product immediately.Customers seeking free shipping want to save money.When using mass media – TV and radio – at the zero moment of truth, your message must be urgent.Urgency is achieved when the desire is widespread, but the availability is limited.Customers in transactional mode are worried about spending money. They are willing to spend time to save money.Customers in relational mode are worried about spending time. They are willing to spend money to save time. This is why they will choose someone they feel they can trust. In the absence of a previously chosen preferred provider, they will choose to trust Google reviews and Amazon reviews.Television and radio are called mass media for a reason: they reach the unfiltered masses. When you use mass media, you are fishing with a net for future customers and their influencers.The goal of advertising in mass media is to become the preferred provider, the one the customer thinks of first and feels the best about.Mass media – TV and radio – can deliver big results quickly, but only for products that have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.Food and entertainment have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.Engagement rings and air conditioners have broad appeal and a long purchase cycle.The longer you use mass media, the better it works. The effects of mass media are cumulative. But it only works for products and services that have broad appeal.When using mass media long-term for products with a long purchase cycle, your message must be memorable.Mass media fails miserably for products with narrow appeal.When your product has narrow appeal, online media is your answer.Make your store and your website interesting. The seller who gets more of the customer’s time is the one most likely to get their money.Online, when you want to target the customer at the zero moment of truth, you have to bid on the right keywords or buy the right list.Unbranded keywords are the ones that everyone in your category is bidding on.Unbranded keywords are expensive.Branded keywords are those signature phrases – brandable chunks – for which your company is known.Branded keywords deliver 7x to 10x higher return-on-investment than unbranded keywords.Branded keywords are most easily created through mass media – TV and radio – but they can also become known through blog posts, YouTube videos, and other social media.Don’t set out to make money. Set out to be the kind of company that people want to do business with.If people like you, they will create their own logic for buying from you.Do you remember our opening statement? “Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.”These are some of the things you will study in-depth when you become a member of the Ad Masters Guild at the American Small Business Institute.Coming soon. Just email [email protected] to get your name on the early notification list.Roy H. Williams