Lead Generation – Orren Prunckun

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 5: How to sell your product in a competitive market

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:35 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me answer a question about how to sell your product in a competitive market.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Question

Hi my name is Deb and I’m a self producing musician on the fringe circuit as each year the festivals get bigger it’s becoming harder for the smaller independent acts to cut through and compete with the big budget corporate acts in addition to this I’m aware of the massive eco footprint festivals creates so I’m trying to do my bit for the environment by cutting down on flyers and posters without the budget for a publicist aside from Facebook advertising what are some other best value for money unique ways you would use to sell your show in a competitive market.

Answer

Hello Debra this is an awesome question I really like this because I have spent a lot of time in bands and DJing emceeing and Club promoting over the years and I love this stuff so it’s really um what I’m gonna give you is hopefully super relevant to you so if I was in your shoes I’d do all of the following right so I commend you for jumping out there and doing paid Facebook ads think about Facebook Ads anything you spend I want you to be breaking even I want you to be self liquidating that so any dollar you put in I want you to be getting $1 out I don’t want you to be spending money without actually covering your cost of that ad you may be thinking or why would you want to do that you’re not making any profit all of your profits should be made on back-end for through multiple performances and getting people to come along again and again to what you’re doing and bringing their friends so if you’re gonna be doing Facebook ads make sure every dollar you put in you’re getting at least one dollar back even if you’re just covering the costs of your ads you’ll make all of your profit elsewhere and through performances because people go and see bands over and over and over again and musicians time and time again because they just love what they do in terms of getting cut through I totally agree with you the number one thing is you have to be polarizing there are going to be people that love you and if there are people that love you there are also gonna be people that hate you the only way you want to get cut through is by putting a stake in the ground and saying this is who I am and this is what I stand for and this is the type of thing that I produce now on that if you’re being polarizing it’s a really good qualifier you’re getting people to raise their hand and say yes I’m in and I mean about your music and also by default you’re disqualifying people and getting them to say they’re not a fan of what you’re doing and that is totally okay the more polarizing you can be the better agree with you with the being eco-friendly for sure and you know just beyond the environmental factors that come into that I think flies are really dumb you know we’re coming into a federal election here in Australia and I sealed the core flutes and all the core flutes are the same thing huge waste in terms of hobbies but they don’t actually do anything like no one makes a buying decision by looking at someone’s mug on a quad flute on a light pole no one makes a buying decision based on that yeah it’s a good memory reminder but that’s you know a whole other branding issue around memory reminders and why you have branding to start with so I’m not going to go into that but what I would be doing what a sir let me just go back a step with pliers most people at you know you mentioned the fringe in other festivals most people with flyers they’re just going around and everyone’s saying that they’re just handing out flyers to people in hopes that they’ll come to their show and there’s you know a little bit of a conversation that happens but not too much but people take the flour away and the users throw them out and that’s the concern that you’ve got right what with flyers what they’re trying to do is the same thing as politicians with the core foods they’re just trying to go from you know frozen or cold all the way there like boiling him you know they’re just trying to take a bit of ice and get it to 100 degrees Celsius second you try and sell someone on a bit of paper that’s a five like you have to be the best sales person in the world to be able to do that and you just don’t have the capacity through that modality or medium to do it so what I would be doing and the main concern people have is when you know you’re offering something to them is de-risk it it’s like I don’t know you I don’t like you I don’t trust you how can you do risk this buying decision for me so if I go to your show and it doesn’t pan out to be what you promised I’ve lost with this money and time and all these other opportunity costs so what I would be doing is flipping it on its head instead of giving something like a flyer to someone I would be getting something from them that I could follow up follow up with them so this is like the same thing with business cards right but I don’t carry around business cards because if I give a business card to someone it’s just going to go into the drawer into the bin and they’re just gonna totally forget about it if I take a business card from someone that means I am in control of the conversation I can follow up with that person so what I’m getting going at getting at is you to do the same thing is collect something from them cut their business card not literally collect their business card but collect their contact details in some way and I would be doing that as an incentive okay give me your contact details so I can follow up with you but in exchange for that what I’m gonna do is give you an mp3 player and some headphones with my music on it so you can go out and listen to me and you can do it in the comfort of your own home there is zero risk the other risk is you’ve given me your contact details and if you like it you will enjoy the you were welcome in the contact that I have inviting you to my show that’s gonna be a paid show or I would do the same thing is I would burn something to a CD give CDs out in exchange for contact details at these festivals same goes I know you’ve got a little bit of recorded video of the performances you do or maybe that’s an assumption but if you do a DVD or put that recorded video on a USB with you know in exchange for those contact days or so that kind of builds into the next thing is now you’ve got their contact details you’ve got their business card right and they’ve already taken zero risk and listen to your music and if you reach out to them and say I’ve got a show coming up we’d like to come along it’s paid so I’m twenty bucks the amount of conversion to get through that is far higher than anything that you’ve done with a flyer and already not you and they’re like probably like you and then it’s the buying decisions made much simpler for them what I would also be doing is looking at you so you mentioned a publicist I’m not sure if you’re doing that currently but anything to do with PR and publicity you really need to get a really strong hook or angle that makes you different and where I’m going with this is there’s a guy and I’m Rob Lee gonna give a whole bunch of examples in the hip hop rap kind of urban speakers I’m sort of into that as well as heavy metal but this guy may be slim Jesus was a kid I don’t remember how old he was about 12 years old but he was a white kid from Southern America and he call himself slim Jesus who’s doing like gangsta rap right so he’s angle and a blow up his song I remember his song was but it was just going everywhere was who’s this white kid young guy doing gangsta rap and he called himself slimming Jesus right so everything about that is unique and really interesting and meaning just jumped on it and really promoted him so I’m back just a memory on my iPhone but what I’ll be doing and I’m gonna get back to angle was just in a second but the other thing I would be doing would be turning competitors in to partners so there’s a lot of other people within festivals competing for the same attention the same sorts of people so I’ve gone back to that angle and seeing what you do as being seeing what you do that is unique or different and using that to differentiate yourselves yourself from others so yep there are other people doing you know similar musical acts then as you go how can you differentiate yourself rather than competing with other performers but turn them into partners to me that you compliment them or compliment you with and as soon as you are complimenting each other you’re not by definition competing and those partners sir those competitors them turn into partners especially promotional partners to help you get your message out to similar different cohorts like you just look at the need of theirs look at something like cooking right there people that are into cooking and they buy lots of different cooking books like I’m into books right you can see behind me like I don’t just have one book on one topic I have multiple books on multiple topics so just because someone is competing in the same sphere as you as long as you’ve got something different a different book that has different content different music it has different content people are going to go buy it they’re not actually in competition and your competition can see that you’re not directly doing the same thing as them or the same genre as then I’m providing something similar they’ll be more than happy to go out and promote for you the other thing is doing collaborations with different with different genres so we’re not even talking about competition to Ana competition to partners but different musical acts that are doing different genres and how can you actually go out and compliment each other they have access to a different certain cohort you have access to another cohort that’s quite different how can you combine what you both through into one thing and cross-promote each other that way so the example I’m thinking of is t-pain did a collaboration with tell us with like you know you’ve got that hip-hop with you know pot and they’ve got two different audiences they did a collaboration together and they opened each other’s music to different cohorts and helped promote each other in terms of that what else I would be giving away in my own music to anyone and everyone that needs music look at podcast like this right I have some intro music as mattre music I would be going to every different podcast or youtuber that has a very similar demographic of who you want to target and I’d just be giving my music away for free at the front and start or in the middle of their podcast to get your name out there same thing with tick tock if you’re not familiar with the app tick-tock this thing is blowing up and it’s super addictive it’s all music based so people are doing things to a back of backing of music so I just should be trying to get your music out there now in terms of other distribution firehoses in terms of meaning there are there are technologies out there that just already have cohorts people I would be just submitting all of my music to our YouTube SoundCloud BitTorrent who else Spotify has people I’d be submitting all of my music to those platforms I’m just getting everything out there the other thing with that is just stopping precious about how much you produce I’ve been British pretty true sorry producing so many different things that you can get out into the marketplace the thing is if no one sees sorry no one to see here’s it doesn’t really matter it’s only the big wings that matter if you are putting out a whole lot of music they example I’m trying to give here is people another urban and rap artist hey years put out he was prolific he’s put out so much stuff and a lot of the stuff wasn’t good but a lot of the stuff people didn’t hear but was only the stuff that was really good that got picked up by the mainstream and got promoted that way and he got quite a few picked up that way because it was just producing so much stuff but that quite a lot of the mainstream population don’t actually know all of the stuff that produce because not all of it was hits and just went under the radar and got kind of lost into obscurity the other thing just on this is with all this distribution firehoses those talking about like Spotify and YouTube and BitTorrent and SoundCloud is that they’re already artists out there that are producing on those platforms not sure if you really want to try this out but a guy named Soulja Boy you may have remembered him from maybe about 10 years ago so he what he used to do was um who would upload his music but with the names of other artists in his genre so he would just say whoever he knows a big ass at the time he would just you know rename his tracks the same tracks as them and then people were just going searching for those tracks and then they would come across this other track that was a soldier boy track another are this is not what I was listening for but some of them found it was a good thing others and probably the majority of them didn’t think it was a good thing and just like exited out and got all mad and so on but the ones that did like what listened to the ends and they’d be like oh this is cool and then at the very end you’d have you’d have information to go and find out more about you so even though I said a lot of people get annoyed with that Soulja Boy actually attributes a lot his initial success to that strategy so I’m not sure if you want to try that out but that’s another thing that might be um might be useful so I think that’s all I’ve got off the top of my head that you’d be worth you going out and at least considering if not trying to get your word out without having to rely on flyers not having to rely on a publicist although I did mention some of that and also not relying on Facebook but I did mention what I think you should be doing around those three things if you want to follow up with the Flyers publicists and/or Facebook but I gave you a whole bunch of other stuff that I think will help you a lot but the main thing is don’t try to sell people that don’t want to be sold take them through it my customer journey make sure they grab their contact details you can follow up because of what if your revenue will come from later purchases down the track so I’d love you to go try all of this stuff out love you too let me know how you go with it and I’m really excited to hear from you.

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 4: How to get a product out to partners & consumers

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:26 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me answer a question about creative ways to get a product out to partners and consumers.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Hey Orren it’s Dragos, best of luck with a podcast it sounds really exciting and I’ve got a marketing question that I’m hoping you can help with we’ve recently started signature board games and we’ve pretty much finished that first game called flip and fish well we’ve decided to do is do a small print run instead of doing a Kickstarter or something like that because we’ve got really good feedback from people who are basically saying we want to buy this right now we want to take advantage of that and sell a few a few copies and then reinvest that that back in the business and possibly later on Kickstarter etc later on so the question is once we print out press batch which will be about 500 what’s the most creative or what are some ideas for us to marketers either to shops or to clients in a creative way to try and get them out there considering it’s a very crowded market and new designers with one game usually have a hard time getting noticed yeah any thoughts comments feedback would be much appreciated it was thought about things like partnering up that side of the industry but yeah any anything else yeah?

Answer

Hello that is a great question and I just want to congratulate you and applaud you have been following your journey I think what you’ve done and how to take an action on this is phenomenal and also in that you go in a small print run especially for a physical product is an amazing strategy without you know going out and spending thousands of dollars and tons of your time and betting the farm in case this thing does or does not work so doing a really small one rania is a really fantastic strategy so big Pats on back for that so I’m gonna tell you a question with two different ways I’m going to talk about what you’re selling and then how you are selling it so I really want you to think about what it is that you are selling now you’re going to a market where there are plenty of players and plenty of competing products now that’s not a bad thing because consumers love what you’re doing and you know the industry has been around for a really long time but which also which means that people are interested in purchasing what you have to offer but because there’s so much noise out there I really want you to think about how you’re going to position yourself amongst all of the competitors what is it that you do or what is it that your product does that stands out from everyone else now in the PR and the publicity game this is called a news anchor or certainly another news anchor a publicity angle or a PR angle so what is that that’s going to jump out and hook people’s attention because you are unique or different or better or faster than all of the other things that are on the market now yeah the product will solve that but you have to break through all of the noise that’s out there so what is it that you’re yes it is a board game but what is that that people are going to get out of it but also what is the thing that is going to grab their attention now in terms of how you’re selling I want you to go back to the cause I recorded about the fair value line and also how McDonald’s acquires customers and makes a profit and I want you to apply those two different ideas to what you’re currently doing now cards against humanity’ does this in an interesting way and that’s the only thing that’s coming to my mind on the spot is that they do expansion packs for all of their cards so you come in and buy the game and you have a fantastic time and you know usually board games are just a once-off purchase whereas cards against humanity’ they go out and do an expansion pack and I think and I understand this multiple expansion packs so they’re making a little bit more money from the beyond the initial product they’re also providing value for that now I look at all the board games that you know I’ve played as kids and played as kids and currently play we’ve got quite a few board games at the big check that I go to and these things have been you know made back in the 70s so it was a once-off purchase and we’re just getting a ton of value out of that however you know you can go along and create more value than just the once off purchase by creating the equivalent of what might be an expansion pack the cards for cards gates I’m Jana humanity so I really want to think about that in terms of what you’re selling now in terms sorry in terms of how you’re selling it so you’ve had a look at like the fair value line and how McDonald’s acquires their customers we’ve got that kind of framework of strategy of different products of different price points at different times through that customer journey I also want you to think about what the sales message of communication or the language that you’re using for each of those stages now they should come or be distilled or cascaded down from what you are talking about in terms of how differentiating yourself and how you positioning yourself in the market so all that communication of each of those different stages within that product during come from how you are different and then finally once you’ve got the stages and then you’ve got what the messaging is think about how you can go about acquiring customers now I did speak to that briefly in one of the other calls around paid earned in own media so on the paid and earn side I want you to think about all of the different ways you can pay for attention and also have all of the different ways that you can go and earn attention but not just spend all of your time doing that seeing how you convert can convert that into owned media waste you capture all of that payout all of that money you spend them all that time you spent you’ve capture that into an asset that you can communicate that sales message to all of those prospects and customers as they go through that customer journey and thereby something you know a small price point that they get a small amount of value and then you know the equivalent of the expansion packs as they go on so now in terms of partners and how you can go about creating partnerships the first stage is actually going out and finding as many partners as you can that I related to you but not direct competitors now these are going to be distributors for you so this shouldn’t be a really difficult task that was going out and finding that out about who all those distributors are both online and offline and then once you’ve done that once you’ve found those distributors what is it that they want or what is it that they are motivated by and really finding out that and doing some exploration to what they want and then being able to go out and then provide that for them so going on helping them get whatever they want just before you go out and ask them to promote your game so those four stages are really, really important to go out and find partners that are going to be behind your course and be able to go out and promote what you’re doing so I really hope that helps try it out let me know what happens and thanks your question.

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 1: Where and how to market and sell

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:01 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me a question about where and how to market and sell.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Question

Hi Orren its Christine here so my question is a brand new service a niche product or service that nobody else is doing so nobody knows about it therefore they don’t know to look for it Google search or whatever where and how is the best way to market that kind of service in the most financially efficient way?

Answer

Ask this question starting with the how and then go to the where so with the hell what you really want to do is be able to reveal to someone that they actually have a problem and that problem is worth solving but the thing is obviously that I’m aware I don’t know what their problem is so I’ll give you analogy so let’s just pretend this person they’re walking around in a really fancy suit and we’re just going to the toilet and they’ve got this really long sheet of toilet paper hanging off the back of their shoe now they’re trying to combine dollars you know they’re walking around try and look really good but everyone else can see they’ve got this group of I’m toilet paper CVS hanging behind them and they can’t see it now obviously they’re unaware I’ve had to have a problem so what any decent and client person would do would be got to the mist hey hey look you’ve got this bit of toilet paper behind you and at that moment that person has had that problem revealed to them they didn’t realize that they had a problem and they’ve been it’s been revealed to them so now their problem aware and now they’re also aware of you and hopefully because you did in a really nice way they also lucky so they’ve gone from not knowing you to knowing you and liking you all in one fell swoop and you can see this in moving different scenarios you know someone’s drinking alcohol and you know they’ve been told that you know a couple drinks a night is healthy for you but she’s you know some for example soon your research may have come out to say that anything over one drink night is unhealthy and they thought they were doing the right thing but now it turns out that they’re not or you know there are a couple kilos overweight and it’s still within the BMI index but you know their weight is still an issue but they think because they’re in the BMI Oh index is fine so really what you have to do is make them known of what Norman – the problem that’s happening the other thing that comes to mind is the specialist asbestos used to be great everyone you saw roll around in it and then you know people started dying and they said asbestos is not so good for people anymore so ah on that making people aware there’s two think with the Johari Window in that Johari Window is kind of like the invest analogy I can give you verbally is picture a pie chart and the pie chart is divided into three slivers and two of those slivers a really, really tiny and one of those slivers is really big and a slew but that’s really, really big let’s just say it takes up like 98 percent of the pie chart that’s all the things we don’t know that we don’t know and then the other two slivers are less to say for example one percent each so one of those one percent so all the things that we know we know and I know I know how to talk and speak in the English language I know how to cook I know that I know how to change my sheets for example now the remaining 1% is what we know we don’t know so I know that I don’t know how to speak Mandarin Chinese right and what you’re trying to do as a business owner is move all of the information that person doesn’t know they don’t know so the person in the suit with the toilet paper moving all of that information into one of those other categories so you’re moving some of the stuff that’s in the ninety-eight percent into one percent of what they know they now know and one of the best ways to do that is to tell a story it’s kind of like a Trojan horse like no one when they’re a kid likes their parent going up to them as saying you shouldn’t do this but if the parent says or explains a story about something happen to them or happen to a friend of theirs all of a sudden you’re not getting told what to do and the lesson gets instilled in them the other way especially through it like you know the example I gave you of asbestosis you know research is really powerful but the thing is when you’re doing this stuff so we’re kind of in that how section already when you’re doing this stuff you don’t have a ton of time because this person doesn’t know you and they don’t like you and it’s the equivalent of going up to someone on the screen saying hey can I just talk to you for like an hour everyone’s just gonna look at you and say you know get away from me you freak but if you go up to the boat I just really want to opinion and I’m gonna take 15 or 30 seconds of your time most humans most decent people go yeah hey no worries it’s fine so however you’re getting this story or this research for this mechanism to reveal a secret to this person blind spot it’s got to be really, really short because people just don’t have time and the cause I don’t have time and in combination that they didn’t like it yet because they don’t know you you’ve really got to get it out quickly once you’ve revealed whatever that blind spot is and you’ve helped them out they’re obviously going to be grateful for you because you’re the equivalent of the person that’s told them to get the toilet but off their shoe so you’ve gone you know kind of a lot of the steps way through you know overcoming some of the objections are selling the last one you’ve got really overcome is them trusting you and depending on how you reverse agree you may get that trust but you probably won’t so don’t make the mistake of going in and trying to sell at this stage because there’s probably don’t trust you yeah and obviously Trust is built by making a promise and keeping your promise and then doing that over and over again and demonstrating over time that you’re a trustworthy provider so don’t form this is a mistake like selling of them there just make them aware that they have a problem now that they are aware that they have a problem the next logical thing for them is to say well now I don’t have a problem what solutions are out there and that’s where you come in to put some trust around yeah there are solutions we happen to be one of those but there are all these other different types and you put a bit of trust and then when they’re at the point of saying hey there are all these solutions now I know what they are your product is one of those and then they can go into potentially choosing your Proctor and becoming product aware and then going on to be most aware with the comments like a customer so let’s move on to where you actually go do that so you we’ve got markets and market sizes so it’s like seven point whatever billion people on the planet and not everyone is your customer so you your total addressable market is never seven billion you have to go to the next Iran with market size underneath that so you’re addressable serviceable addressable market see Sam so it’s all the people that may have that problem and it’s not seven billion and depending on what price of selling or service you’re selling there’s going to be a fraction of that seven billion humans that just would never have the problem even if they’re unaware and that they’ve got a problem for your product so you’ve got to go down to the next rung of all the people that potentially could use your product if they became aware they had a problem and they’re people that you should be targeting it should be your target market because they don’t know you yet so then it comes to the question of where those people are and don’t necessarily form into the mistake thinking it has to be online those people are everywhere online is just one channel so absolutely could be offline that could be found offline but you really got to think about where that set of people congregate and usually the channels are going to find them through either paid or earn media not buying media if you’ve got own media they already know you they already like you they’re in contact with you and can find you so it’s really about paid what paid channels and what own channels you can use so those paid channels are really going out to interrupt people in their day to day life and that’s what you’re really doing when you’re going up to the person with the hypothetical bit of toilet paper hanging out there sure is you’re going on to step interrupts them so paid media is probably gonna be one of the really good channels that you need to look at and same with your owned media they’re going through and reading a blog or reading a newspaper or whatever and your information comes up and it’s an interrupt because they’re not actually gone about looking for that information use they don’t problem or we’re so hopefully that answers your question or at least gives you some clues of how you can tackle the where and the how of making people unaware of a problem aware of a problem but also aware of you so you can take them down and that customer journey to help them out.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 17: How to determine what your marketing message is

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 16 May 2019 01:18:13 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

When to deliver a message;
What the two main types of messages are;
How long each message should be;
Why these work the way they do; and
How to determine where a prospect is in the buying cycle.

So, listen here as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren rPrunckun and I want to talk about the struggle that people have in determining their marketing message now it’s a very common concern that people haven’t it’s a issue that they just don’t really know how to solve they’ve got some idea and they dabble I’m here and they’re trying to work out what their right marketing messages but sometimes it just doesn’t matter I’m gonna go through all the reasons why I know that it doesn’t land now depending on who you are selling to you and particularly their buying temperature is going to change the type of marketing message you’re going to give them so for example tougher marketing message you give someone a prospect that is cold it’s going to be very very different than the type of marketing message you’re going to give a prospect who is either warm or fight if not boiling the same guys with no prospect that doesn’t know you it doesn’t know they have a problem and they’re frozen all of these different marketing messages that you’re going to be giving them are all going to be different and they usually differ on two main factors there’s quite a few other factors that changes and depends on what you’re giving them but the two main factors are number one if it’s a branded or sorry a branding style message or a direct more direct sales message and then the other one is the length either you know very short to you know something that’s very long in the hours if not days now when you’re moving the cross back through all of these buying temperatures from frozen to boiling you’re going to be giving them a marketing message that’s going to be really sure and concentrating more on a branded or branding style marketing message and as you move through those temperatures all the way up into a boiling them the marketing message you’re giving them is going to get longer and longer and it’s going to get more direct in terms of asking for the sale now why is this the case there’s a couple reasons one is someone that doesn’t know you doesn’t like you or doesn’t trust you someone that’s cold and I don’t even know that they have a problem sorry I beg your pardon that’s frozen and they don’t even know that they have a problem for them to consume something a marketing message that you give them that is you know 5 10 15 even up to an hour long is not going to happen that’s like going up to someone in a supermarket and saying hey will you listen to me on this topic I’m really passionate about for now there’s going to look at you until you get lost you know something is really short even under a minute it’s going to be the type of length marketing message to be giving them now once they know you and they like you and they trust you and you’ve built a lot of rapport in a relationship with them they’re more likely to listen to something for an hour or longer so the marketing message of giving them is going to be longer in those aspects also if you are something of higher priced product you’re saying a sale a sales message is going to be far longer than say a really low ticket item it’s going to be far shorter because the risk in terms of what the prospect is risking is far lower as you move down that buying to purchase someone that is you know or boiling prospect you can be going for more of a direct sale you’re gonna ask for it you’ve given a lot of value in that branding up front as there were a frozen or prospect and you can ask for a direct sell one and they’re gonna get they’re not going to be as they’re going to be far more open to it then something that you have done before so the type of marketing message that you are giving is really predicated on the temperature the buying temperature that this prospect is at when you are delivering that message you’ve got to really gauge and get a barometer of where that person is at that prospect is that the time that you want to communicate with them and that is going to determine the marketing message that you are going to deliver them it’s not ad hoc it’s not random there’s a sequence that you need to go through and it’s all dependent on where that person is that not where you want them to be or where you are what you want to sell them at the time of sale so the two things they’re going to summarize are whether it’s on a branding message or a direct sales message and then also if it is long or short and with that it kind of depends on the price point that you are selling as well so hope this is really useful for those that are trying to work out what their marketing messages I’d like you to go out and try it let me know what happens and see how you go thanks for listening.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 16: How to find the prospect you want to talk to

Orren Prunckun — Wed, 15 May 2019 06:06:44 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

How to get past gatekeepers successfully;
How to get referrals to the right person;
How to make sure the prospect you want to talk to responds; and
Why both of these tactics work.

So, listen here as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren Prunckun and today I want to talk about how you get in contact with the right decision maker now this comes from a question of someone else asking me is only applicable for b2b sales and one-on-one selling where you don’t have scale where you’re not doing a one-to-many style communication and the question was like how you actually get into contact with the right decision maker or how you get past gatekeepers and the real problem is most people try to get past gatekeepers by actually going to the gatekeeper themselves and as they’re named locally implies is they are a gatekeeper they are stopping you from getting in front of the decision maker just by default of who and what their position and who they are what their position is so why do you go around and my experience has been you always go above the gatekeeper and you go above the person that you are trying to get in contact with you always go to the very highest person that you can get usually the CEO managing director or whoever and you go to that person that person is really really busy instead of them hey you know my name is so-and-so who is the person that’s responsible for what every role that you’re looking for and that person nine times out of 10 and will give you their name and their position and say this is the person usually because that CEO is way too busy to actually field any of your questions they’re more than happy to hand ball you off and that’s why they are in a management and leadership role is to delegate to all of those people now you know exactly who the person is and what role they have all you do and if you’re doing this by email especially CC the person that gave you quote unquote the referral or told you who that person was CC them into the communication saying hey I am have spoken to the CEO or the leader or the managing director and they said you are the person that’s responsible for this role well I have I am trying to get in contact you can obviously see them into this again 9 out of 10 9 out of 10 times the person that you have contacted and CC the put referral into will reply to you because their boss or someone up the chain from them in other words still their boss and CC’s into them and they feel like they have to respond because they don’t respond to the person that’s given the referral they look like they’re not doing the job so that is one easy way to get into contact with people who are decision-makers and getting past gatekeepers so if you’re in b2b sales and one-on-one sales and you trying to get in for contact with that person go to the top not to the bottom try it out see what happens let me let me know what how you go and I would really like to hear from anyone that tries it out good luck thanks for listening.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 12: Snail mail works as long as you do it right

Orren Prunckun — Wed, 01 May 2019 03:32:48 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

Why snail mail works;
What purposes snail mail should be used for; and
How to improve snail mail campaigns.

So, listen here as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren Prunckun and I’m talking about snail mail again today so I’ve talked about that quite recently but I’ve got some more fliers in the post now a lot of people I hear complain about snail mail saying that’s not very effective but depending on what you’re trying to do it can be super effective now if you’re doing localized campaigns if you’re doing things that need to be personalized new things that need to be looked at even though I talked about this before sometimes fliers that come in a post don’t get looked at I sorry don’t get opened they definitely get looked at because they are physically delivered to you so they definitely are getting looked at but not necessarily open and I talked about talked about that more recently so why is not asked why I’m talking about come from wrote came from red white thick paper color would have cost them a lot of money I don’t know maybe $2 per flyer and it’s customized Byron talked about that in a minute but two or three dollars systems done arm to print that and then delivery cost on top of that I imagine it was probably hand-delivered by paying someone to do that cost them a lot of money so the downside to snail mail is that there is a cost related tool but there are upsides you know if this localized there’s personal law and you want people day at least look at it so you gotta balance that out but the room decision really comes down to what you’re actually selling now if there’s a high ticket item or price of service snail mail is amazing for that now if it’s a low price to offer not so much that’s especially if you’re going in cold but there is an there is use for sell now if you are selling low price products and services and I’ll talk about that in a minute so basically if you are talking if you are selling low priced items and I thank you note or a welcome note in the post as I said it’s personalized and it will definitely get looked at is a really good option if you’ve already sold a low priced uprightness service setting that I’m through the physical post the snail mail anything else that’s physical so you know a gift or a a catalog or a coupon that needs to be physically redeemed at a brick-and-mortar brick-and-mortar location all really good for snail mail snail mail is a physical channel so doing physical items in the in the post and makes a lot of sense now going back to a high-priced items so this is for a property that has been sold and on the front is says you’ve got a new neighbor and it’s about 1/4 of the flyer and then the other 3/4 is actually a photo of the property that’s been sold now I give railway tons of credit for this amazing campaign the only thing I would change about that is I would flip the ratios around and I’d have you’ve got a new neighbor as the headline and for three-quarters of the flyer and then I’d also make one quarter of the flyer the actual property what a season today says the location of the property it’s been sold for the amount and then how long it took them to solve sell it now just looking at this software really high price and it’s all really really quickly so that says like a lot of great things about this product or service that they’re offering as a realtor now if the person that got this because they are delivering in snail mail they’re delivering in a geographic area so people in that area that are related to this they’re targeting is on point if that person is qualified and they are looking to sell they’re in the market to sell this is an amazing offer now it’s a high priced offer because the the rates that ruses takers you know around 2% of the sale price so it makes this a the return on investment a really effective campaign so if someone got this they look at how much it was sold for and how quickly it was so forth the offer is amazing on the back side this has got more photos of the property which indicates the what the product this is the product they were selling looks like so the person that gets this flyer says has been sold to this amount in this amount of time and I’m comparing to what something else a competing product to competing property looks like gives them a really good indication of what there probably could sell for and that’s got a call to action on what I’m saying give us a call if you like what you see and you think you are in the market for this amazing campaign there’s a cold campaign but it is hyper localized it’s not actually personable but if this one is sold you know in the last couple days so I give them credit that they weren’t able to do that and also it gets looked at headline needs to be bigger because that’s the only thing that doesn’t really work but getting looked at it was bigger some would take a look at it but it’s an amazing offer this shows that um slow mail actually works but I was in the market so I would think it’s a really good offer so what I would like you guys to do with this information is if you are selling a hot bus ticket sorry high ticket price provides a service you want to be personable you want something to be looked at and also if it writes for geographic location and or what you are offering is physical or can be redeemed physical in a physical location or can be delivered in a physical channel even though it costs a little bit of money to get this out it is really really effective campaign even if you’re similar low price I’m item with things like gifts and thank you’re welcome I’m cars that come after that so what I want you to do is try this out see what happens and then let me go and thanks for listening thanks for listening.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 10: Don’t make ads look like ads via the original click bait

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 07:40:30 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

Why ads should not look like ads;
What the original click bait is;
What all marketing & sales communication should have; and
How to create marketing & sales communication that gets opened, read and acted on.

So, listen here to hear as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren Prunckun and today I am talking about junk mail like junk mail I love going through the letterbox to see what kinds of ads people try to target movie but today I’m talking about junk mail in particular I’m talking about Estonian federal election and all of the marketing material has come through so I want to lick this off with two principles the first one is don’t make an ad look like an ad and the second one I’m going to talk about is the original clickbait so when you are asking for votes for an election the people that already love you so you’re warm and you’re hot prospects they already know you very likely and they already trust you they’re part of your tribe they have already been sold on who you are and what you stand for so you do not need to reconvince those people to vote for you now people that are called prospects people that don’t know you don’t like you don’t trust you that is a completely different story so with that context I want you to start to think about everything that I’m about to talk about so the first cab off the rank is this flyer now this flyer taught us about her the candidate all about her where she went to school where she lives where she played netball where she works where she was a Girl Guide and when you flip it on the back this side down here it’s all live statements I did this I did that my name is this and then on the flip side there are some dot points some tick boxes what she can do for you now when I look at that 75% that flyer is all about her trying to convince her sorry prospects core prospects because remember all of the war prospects are already convinced cold prospects like me that I should be voting for her all about her nothing about me or what I want from my representative next one up looks like this it actually looks like the Labour flyers in labor branding with the Labour brand colors but when you flip it over is actually see still a Labour brand color down the very bottom it has got a statement saying that was authorized by the Liberal Party so what they are doing is they’re taking a different tact they’re saying how bad labor is now imagine if I went around in my business saying how bad all the other competitors were and didn’t even mention anything about what I could provide not only that there’s nothing about what they’re even providing or promising no dot points so it was even worse than this one so on each other has dot points of what they’re going to achieve this one just says how badly the competition has Hammond has delivered next one up is this guy’s faces on it so he’s a Labour candidate and the problem with cold traffic is just like what I did then I laughed at him I am going to judge this guy on his picture and picture alone if you do not believe me you are naive I will tell you a little story so many years ago when I was applying for a job I sent out a resume that had my name yes my name a weird name Orren Prunckun look at me are the pretty Caucasian I do not spit the stereotype of an Orren Prunckun now what would happen is people would be quote unquote a racist they would not give me job interviews so what I did was went out and did the exact same resume but put my photo on the resume and guess what I almost doubled the amount of callbacks just purely on that so if you don’t believe people Jake sure on first impressions you are living in a bubble people judge on first impression ever impressions especially cold prospects I don’t know him I don’t like him I don’t trust him yet now if I did and I was a warm hot prospect no I knew him I liked him and I trusted him having his photo won there is a great reminder of who he is not for cold traffic now what I have to do is I thought open up then I have to look through it now with all of these right what these so far in fact before I go into that point the next one is this this one when you open it up Scot brand colors the Palmer United Party but it has no photo of him all it has is dot points so we’re getting slightly better I don’t necessarily agree with these policies or the politician in the politician but in terms of marketing this is slightly better when you flip it over though it’s got his face on and it’s covered in brand colors now the whole purpose for marketing communication is what goes back to a gentleman named East and Norman Lewis he created an acronym called AIDA attention interest desire and action that’s what it stands for now all marketing communication in fact all sales communication at whatever level it is has those four has those four letters of the acronym attention interest desire and action and if you want to translate that to something else there’s a hook it has a story or a reason why you should be interested it has an offer of what is in it for you and then finally it has called action cook story offer call to action every marketing sales communication has that when you break it down now the purpose of all these Flyers is to get someone to open it get someone to read it get someone to believe it and get someone to take action on that with these first couple this one I don’t even need to open it why don’t you do is look at it and literally it goes in the bin I don’t even get a chance to read it because it’s got branding all over it same with this one I don’t even need to open anything to even read it read it and goes threaten the banner beam I haven’t even got to the point of reading it let alone seeing what their offer is and what their quarter action is this one slightly better I actually do have to open it to see what’s in it but it is only slightly better same with this one I’ve got to open up to see what’s in it but really really poor if you’re an accurate average hunter that is a cold prospect they are going to throw that in the bin this is an honor this is only useful for warm prospects and they are already gonna vote for you waste the money now when we move on to the next one we get this don’t even address it to anyone this is really good although not so good at the top it says important voter information for the 2019 federal election that sounds important and if I knew better and I do know better I will probably open this urgently but it is in blue writing and I really know what that means it means it’s going to be a liberal liberal party message haven’t even opened it yet but I’ll show you I guarantee it will be opening it up now and what do you know it liberal party so I opened it that hooked me to open it but I’m not going to read it because you know what I get to see this gentleman’s faced all over don’t know him don’t like him don’t trust him there is no incentive me to read on because I know that is going to be pitching policies for liberal party he would do so much better if he literally did not have any of that branding on it and look at a letter like that and at the bottom if he folded that up and he printed it off like an actual letter you send to a friend that kind of looks like that I would read it because on the front it says important information for the 2019 federal election and then I read that his both got me up open it he’s got me to read it and probably by reading it I actually haven’t read it hard yeah because I just opened it they’re probably some information of what his offer is and what he wants me to do as the call to action they’ll be so much better if you got rid of those two things the next one that came through is this one this one says important voting information inciting red riding like a warning right then it goes on to say don’t risk of fine vote and have your say now because it is in red I bet this is a Labour Party message haven’t opened it yet but let me see if I’m right all these people would get really scared by this for me open it up and think it’s from Australian tour and it’s not I thought it was but it’s actually from the Labour Party to Senator Penny Wong but she’s just got a void information to actually go read register someone to get back to that so again she’s hooked me to open it up right but it’s got all of this like brandy on it and now if I wasn’t a labor supporter and they wanted me to convert me right they better just do this a letter like that just like the Liberal Party so if I wasn’t a Liberal Party voter I should just get rid of all of that hook me into reading the whole thing to see what their story is and what their offer is and then ask me what to do at the end still half the Madrid I’m not gonna do it live on camera but this is really cool this is making my life easy so if I wasn’t already registered for the Australian federal election this would make my life easy so she’s actually added some bonus time-saving stuff in there that makes me going you know what penny you are actually helping me out and in fact in all fairness that looks like one of the liberal parties also has something very similar in there on the back it does it’s got a voidable avoider application form so with this when you are communicating with cold prospects you have to remember they don’t know you they don’t like you and they don’t trust you they’re not already converted to who you are and what your sales messages your whole goal is to follow the AIDA principles get their attention then get them interested then get them to desire what you are actually offering them get them to take action on that or hook them tell my story tell them why it’s important what you’ve got to say and then finally give them an offer and then tell them how to take action on that offer now please don’t put a whole ton of branding on stuff for cold prospects they don’t care they don’t like you they don’t know you and I don’t trust you there’s been a fun day for me I’m grabbing all of the post and going through some marketing messages for you I hope there is some valuable insights into that so what I want to do when you’re going to create a marketing or sales message take that stuff on board and see not how not to do things and try it out see what happens and let me know but I guarantee you I’ve led you up the right path with this hope you have a great day and I’ll talk to you soon.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 6: Political marketing via fliers

Orren Prunckun — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:38:47 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

What not to do with a marketing message; and
Why your marketing communication should be in the language of your market.

So, listen here to hear as I discuss these!

Transcript

Hello hello so in Australia the federal election has been cold and all candidates are now in full promotion mode to get their message out to the market of why they should be the best candidate to represent us at the national level now I’m getting all these wires in my letterbox and one of the fires that caught my attention probably for all of the wrong reasons was from one of the candidates I was a big glossy flyer and on that flyer literally 75% of the flyer was all about them who they were what their interests were where they grew up how they where they went to school and so on and literally I looked at this and I said none of this relates to me I do not care and look I get the thinking and the rationale of why they did that trying to establish that day knew the cohort intimately well but at the end of the day I don’t care about any of that stuff all I care about is results and I want certain things to happen federally in Australia and a lot of that flag didn’t address any of those basic things even if they were in opposition to some of the outcomes I wanted for this country they did not even mention what their alternative was going to be huge waste of money huge waste of time for them to print out a flyer that did not address anything that the market would want so the lesson here is if you’re going to put a communication out into the market and you are trying to convince someone in that market to take some sort of action that is favorable for you should really be putting all the words on that page in the language of what is in it for that person to take action that is in alignment with what you want so I hope that lesson is kind of useful for you and changes the way you think about how you communicate in a public forum I tried out let me know how it goes and I would love to hear from you.

How To Sell

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 05:36:10 +0000

The Sales Process (How To Sell In Person)

Market Research

Identify prospects (who are you customers)

Marketing

Suspect for Prospects (finding your customers)

Marketing/Sales

Initiate Outreach (bridging the gap with your customers)
Target Outreach (qualify/disqualify your customers)

Sales

Needs Analysis (find your customers specific needs)
Solution Presentation (present your solution to your customers)
Trial Close (ask your customers to buy)
1. Negotiation (address any customer concerns – if required)
2. Close (ask your customers to buy again – if required)

The Sales Process (How To Sell Online)

Market Research

Identify prospects (who are you customers)

Marketing

Suspect for Prospects (finding your customers)
Initiate & Target Outreach (qualify/disqualify your customers)

Sales

Solution Presentation (present your solution to your customers and address any customer concerns)
Close (ask your customers to buy)

Rapport Script

Helps you build trust quickly:

“Hi, how are you? *Handshake* My name is X. What’s your name? (Emotional Willingness & Polite Conversation)
“How is your day going? Would you like a (related to product or benefit), they are free? (Facts & Information)
I love that piece of clothing you are wearing (Compliments)
I have the same at home (Commonalities)
“Great, I’m guessing that means you are into (benefit of product)? Cool, do you use already (similar product)? Are you happy with it? That’s sounds positive/negative! (Ideas & Opinions)
Why do you say that and feel that way? (Feelings & Emotions)
Hi5 (Anchor)
I think I can help you – I’d love to give you some ideas. Is that okay or are you just saying that to please me?” (Authenticity & Congruence)

Rapport!

1 Initiate Outreach

Description:

Once you have found prospect contact information you need to initiate outreach to start qualifying them. This step is about making contact and finding the correct decision maker. You need to find the prospect (or decision maker) and get implied permission to contact. If you cannot Initiate Outreach, you need to go back to the Suspect For Prospect step. Use the following scripts…

Location:

The scripts should be sent from your full name from generic email domain such as Gmail or Hotmail, not a branded domain. You will use the same email Subject line and thread. Load responses into CRM.

2 Target Outreach (Qualify)

Description:

Once you have found the correct decision maker you need to start qualifying them for interest in your product. This is not a sales step. If you sell here, you could be reported for SPAM. If you cannot Target Outreach, you need to go back to the Suspect For Prospect step. If you do not hear back send the No Reply Script. If they are not interested send the Not Interested Script. If they are too busy send the Not Now Follow-up Script.

Location:

3 Needs Analysis

Description:

Once you have contacted the prospect or decision maker and qualified them for interest in your product, you then need to find out more about their needs. This is not a sales step. If you sell here, you could be reported for SPAM. If they want to talk to you based in the Needs Analysis In-Person Script then use the Needs Analysis Script. Use the following scripts, as a guide only as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

The Needs Analysis In-Person Script should be sent from your full name from generic email domain such as Gmail or Hotmail, not a branded domain. You will use the same email Subject line and thread as in the Target Outreach Step. The Needs Analysis Script will be delivered in-person if possible or via phone as an alternative, but not via email. Neat casual attire is required. Load responses into CRM.

4 Solution Presentation

Description:

Once you have received permission from the prospect or decision maker to discuss their needs and discovered about them, if the prospect does not have a need, then move back to the Suspect For Prospects step. If the prospect has a need, you then can start selling. The script sequence should follow: Story, Solution and Offer Scripts. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

The scripts should be delivered in person if possible or via phone as an alternative, but not via email. Neat casual attire is required. Email should only be used for sending follow-up and written information after conversation. Load responses into CRM.

5 Trial Close

Description:

Once you have presentenced the product, you then should ask for a Trial Close. If the prospect accepts the solution, move on to the full Close step. If the prospect does not accept the solution, move on to the Negotiation step. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

6 Negotiation

Description:

If you have asked for a Trial Close and the prospect does not accept the solution, you then need to determine their objection(s), then answer their objection(s) and negotiation with them. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

Determine The Objection

The main objections prospects may have (in rough order) include:

Have no need or willingness to pay;
Have the wrong timing and it’s not urgent;
Have no buying authority or ability to pay;
Have no budget or ability to pay;
Do not know what they get with the product;
Do not like or trust your brand;
Do not believe (i.e. trust) the product, service or solution will work;
Do not believe (i.e. trust) the product, service or solution will work for them; and
Do not think the product, service or solution is valuable.

Beyond not being qualified (1-4 above), objections raised usually come down to not enough information or rapport.

These main objections could be expressed in the following ways:

“I’m not interested”;
“I can’t afford it”;
“I can’t make the decision”;
“Not right now”;
“How do I know it works?”;
“This is risky for me”;
“I don’t know you”;
“What do I get?”; and
“I’ll think about it”.

Answer the Objection

After you have determined their buying objections, it’s time to address them so they become buyers. Here are some tried-and-true ways to address the sales concerns:

Ask them demographic and psychographic questions to re-qualify and segment them, explaining what type of buyer the product, service or solution is intended to benefit and those it cannot help;
Re-contact them at a later date, inject scarcity and provide incentives or bonuses along with the purchase;
Same as 1;
Ask them demographic and psychographic questions to re-qualify and segment them and ask who the decision maker is;
Explain the product features;
Give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand and give them the brand story behind the product, service or solution;
Provide them with social proof in the form of testimonials and success stories, give them the story behind the product, service or solution, give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand and explain what type of person the product, service or solution is intended to benefit and those it cannot help ;
Provide social proof via case studies, provide a risk reversal in the form of a money back guarantee, give them the story behind the product, service or solution, give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand, show them the benefits, advantages, results or outcomes that your product, service or solution provides and show your product, service or solution is different or unique; and
Give them the product, service and solution price and translate the value of that price for them into different currencies such as time and effort.

7 Close

Description:

Once you have answered their objections and negotiated with them, the prospect has an increased chance of accepting the solution now, so you then need to ask the Close again. If the prospect still does not accept the solution, you need to move back to the Negotiation step and repeat. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

How To Market and Sell Commodity Products, Services and Solutions

Orren Prunckun — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 03:04:37 +0000

I see this all the time in commodity-type industries.

I call it a commodity-type industry because those businesses provide products, services or solutions that do not have a value-add, above-and-beyond the core products, services or solutions.

The customer is simply paying for a non-creative output.

A commodity could be defined as:

“A basic products, service or solution that is undifferentiated that it is and can be interchangeable with other products, service or solution of the same type.”

Emotional value as opposed to function value is what separates a brand from a commodity.

If you expand the emotional value, you can broaden the price.

I have discussed this in depth here.

Other examples of commodity-type industries could be:

Tradies;
Chippies;
Labourers;
Painters;
Etc.

The commodity issue that affects their marketing and sales is the exact same issue with promotion between affiliates – it’s really hard to differentiate one affiliate to another.

In other words if a company has 10 affiliate to sell the product, those 10 affiliates are all selling the same product for the same price and if they overlap in prospects, it’s really hard for them to be better than the other competing affiliate.

I have written about affiliates in depth here.

A great example is Uber’s refer a friend incentive, in what they call “Free Rides”.

Uber offers users a $5 discount if they refer a friend.

The friend also gets a $5 discount.

The problem is this offer is available to all current users and all prospective users.

Any prospective user can take advantage of the $5 discount from any number of users they know.

Which one do they choose?

Usually it’s the one that is front of mind when making a purchasing decision.

This is the reason why advertising or constant marketing and sales communication works.

You, as a brand, have no idea where a prospect is at metaphorically or when a need arises, so using advertising or constant marketing and sales communication helps you catch prospects and customers at the right time for them.

You, as a brand need to be different.

Customers want your product, service or solution to work.

The product, service or solution working alone is not a differentiator, it’s a bare minimum.

It needs to work!

That’s why customers purchase.

In the case of a Sparkie, the product, service or solution has to adhere to the electrical code etc.

Again, it’s a bare minimum.

Any one qualified (and there are lots of them,) could deliver the product, service or solution.

There is not real value add in-and-of-itself.

Most of these commodity-type industries market and sell the same product, service or solution.

They pitch their services the same.

But there is nothing different about them compared to their competition.

So, how do commodity-type industry businesses compete?

AKA generate leads and prospect.

They compete on price.

When businesses compete on price and discounting, they drive the market down.

Customer gets accustomed to lower prices and the process is irreversible.

It eats away at your margins meaning you need to sell more to make the same revenue.

And competing on price is a race to the bottom.

NO!

Don’t compete on price.

Don’t compete for new business based on your commodity product, service or solution alone.

Beyond these two, here are some market-proven ideas (not an exhaustive list) to help your commodity business compete:

Brand: Create a premium brand;
Free and Offers: What can you offer prospects for free or $1 that will qualify them as a prospect or customer to push them into your marketing and sales pipeline and marketing and sales communication sequence?;
Have a pipeline and communication schedule and content. This allows you to communicate with new prospects on an ongoing basis to sell them at the time of need;
Bonuses: This is related to Free and Low Priced Offers. I always suggest affiliates (as discussed previously in this guide), to differentiate themselves by creating a value add by way of a bonus above-and-beyond the core product, service or solution. A great bonus is something cheap, high perceived value to the prospect and scalable in its delivery. Usually digital products are great for this. The product is the commodity, but the bonus is the differentiator;
Partnerships: Customers with the same pains or same wanted gains actually buy more than one product, service or solution (even competing products, services or solutions) to bring them closer to that gain or away from that pain. Customers were going to buy those products, services and solutions anyway, with or without prompting from symbiotic marketing. How many books of the same genre do you own? I’m willing to guess that it’s more than one. So, case in point Another example may be hair shampoo and conditioner. A better example may be hair shampoo and a hair straightener. In the latter example, the products, services or solutions are either upstream or downstream from each other. Upstream is better than downstream because your products, services and solutions are the next logical progression for the customer who has purchased a competing product, service or solution. Products, services or solutions that are alternative or competing can also be complimentary to your product, service or solution (in the case of hair shampoo and conditioner). Embracing this dynamic puts you in a position of leverage – partners invest money, time and effort in generating leads and partners both leverage each other’s investment. Put this way, if a partner has a qualified contact list that has purchased $1,000,000 of products, services or solutions and you can leverage this to build your contact list, you have in effect gained access to $1,000,000 of qualified customers. Pretty powerful;
Advertisements: search engine ads not social medial ads, for the reasons outline previously in this guide;
Search Engine Optimization: where do most people go when looking for a commodity product without having a referral? Google. The search for the suburb and service. You want to make sure your business is in the first position; and
Use and incentivise referrals with evangelists: You have already made a promise, delivered on that promise and created trust (especially important in industries where there are charlatans and swindlers), so you now have a great basis for word-of-mouth.

Once you have differentiated yourself on the front end in how you market and sell, you also need to differentiate yourself on the back end in how you increase customer loyalty.