Sales Engagement – Orren Prunckun

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.

How To Increase Loyalty With Commodity Products, Services and Solutions

Orren Prunckun — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 02:53:30 +0000

Utility Providers Banks, Telcos, and energy companies are all the same.

Consumers are not happy with power companies.

But everyone kind of already knew this.

They have their loyalty pipeline backwards.

A large Australian bank promised new customers a healthy bonus in the form of frequent flier points (don’t they all), however it was not available for current customers.

In other words, it was an acquisition bonus.

As I was an existing customer of that bank, I asked them to give me the healthy bonus as well because I had been a customer for 10+ years with them.

They flat-out said no (whomever their head of marketing is, is a moron BTW.)

I proceeded to explain the following to them, which they still flat-out said no to (again proving that whomever their head of marketing is, is a moron):

I said if I leave because of this hypocrisy, I won’t recommend them and worse still for them will proactively give them a bad review.

Not only that, they will need to acquire another customer to get back into same position before I left.

They didn’t realize that they had to spend to acquire me in the first place.

NOTE: Actually, they really would need to get two customers to get back into the same position if they lost me.

It has been said that it is approximately three times more expensive to acquire a new customer, than it is too keep an existing one.

That makes sense.

Let’s say it costs this bank $100 to acquire a customer.

So, they spent $100 to acquire me.

They would need to spend another $100 on another customer next to replace me, for a total of $200.

Not only are they happy to lose a customer (me), which is a financial loss of $200, they are happy to lose me for life (including all the bad that will then be generated.)

The bad will possibly add thousands of dollars of potential lost life-time revenue on top of that.

They could have just spent the $33 and given me the same frequent flier points bonus to keep me and kept the $177 revenue, plus any extra $1000s I would have spent with them over my life time.

But, no.

They add insult-to-injury by rewarding new customers who have no loyalty with them through joining bonuses.

These joining bonus contribute to the three times acquisition cost.

Then, when the customer stays around after the bonus, the bank does nothing, nor provides incentives for their loyalty.

They are basically saying: “We don’t care about you, we care about new, unloyal customers.”

This is the ultimate customer churn model.

Churn is customer attrition.

Churn rate is rate of attrition. It is the percentage of subscribers to a service who discontinue their subscriptions to that service within a given time period.

I’d be willing to bet that churn rate of utility companies is phenomenally high relative to other industries, because they can get this right.

And because Banks don’t care about their customers, in the form of customer service or loyalty, customers are just shopping for the cheapest service.

So the chicken-and-egg cycle continues and banks compete on price, not service.

If you are in a commodity industry like utility companies, don’t compete on price.

Here what you should do:

Acquire a customer;
Do everything in you power to keep them happy, indulging refunds, incentives to stay etc. AKA service; and
Get them to recommend and refer friends.

It will be cheaper and more profitable in the long run.

If someone wanted to come in and disrupt these industries, that is how it should be done.

Competition Hacking: How To Hijack Your Competitors To Save Time, Money And Effort And Increase Profits

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:00:05 +0000

Facebook wasn’t the first social networking site, Myspace was.

Google wasn’t the first search engine, Yahoo! was.

It’s much harder to invent something new; then it is to copy something existing.

And it’s usually better to be a fast follower than a leader in this instance.

This method works as the competition has tested for you as you don’t need to re-create the wheel.

You can do the same for your business and grow.

Sorry to say this, but that you are not Steve Jobs.

The likelihood of your creating a million dollar invention is slim.

To prove my point, if you were Steve Jobs, you wouldn’t need this guide.

But no all is doom-and-gloom!

It’s possible to be a fast follower and be really successful, and that is what this guide is about.

Specifically, you will be a fast follower of a wildly successful:

Product, service or solution; or
Marketing campaign.

Depending on where your brand is currently.

You are going to do this by hacking your competitors.

This guide is for two types of people:

Those with a new product, service or solution; or
Existing product, service or solution.

Why Competition Hacking Is Important

So, why would you want to hack your competitors?

Simply because it will save you time, money, effort and increase profits.

Sounds great, right?

Sure does!

What Competition Hacking Is

In broad terms, you are doing competitor intelligence.

Or put another way, you will be doing a marketing hack.

A Hack could be defined as:

“Using something to make it do what you want.”

Or:

“To obtain unauthorized access for gain.”

We will be doing both.

A marketing hack is therefore:

“Using your competition to save you time, money, effort and increase profits by obtaining unauthorized access.”

Sound fun?

Let’s get started.

How To Hack Your Competition

To give you a board picture, we will find what your competitors are doing that is currently working well for them, that is, making them money.

We will then redirect existing traffic that is already there, from the internet firehose to you, instead of going to your competitors.

This works because, if there is competition, especially if the competition is purchasing advertisements, then that competitor is making money.

The existence of advertisements means a brand is making or has an advertisement spend.

If they are spending money, they, by default need to be making money.

Not to be consumed with profit, as the sales may be loss leaders.

But nonetheless, this still means it’s a proven market with proven sales.

Where there is competition , there are customers.

Of course, there are acceptations to this, but this is a rule of thumb for this guide.

With that in mind let’s explore the step-by-step method…

The first step we come across our first decision tree.

We want to know who you are.

We need to determine if you are a startup business or an existing business.

If you are an existing business (with a product, service or solution, then skip this first step and move on to step 2 Hack Competitors.

If you are a startup business (without a product, service or solution yet), you need to Find Products, Services or Solutions.

This process follows:

Find Passion;
Find Advertisements;
Find Products; and
Profit decision.

Let’s start with…

1) Find Products, Services or Solutions

1a) What is Your Passion

The first part of Find Products, Services Or Solutions, is to find your passion.

1b) Find Ads

The second part of Find Products, Services Or Solutions, is to find advertisements.

Not just any ad, ads for products, services or solutions that you are passionate about (Step 1a.)

Here is how to find ads.

You can:

Search Google for keywords related to your passion;
Scroll through your Facebook feed;
Etc.

Then you need to click on the ad and find the retail price.

1c) Find Products

The third part of Find Products, Services Or Solutions is finding products and suppliers.

You need to determine what type of product it is.

Here is the next decision tree:

Is it Physical or digital?

Depending on your answer you need to find the product in the original advertisement.

Once you have found the products retail price, if it is a physical product, you need to then go to search Google for the following:

site:http://aliexpress.com + any keyword that explains the product.

Or:

Save the product image and Google reverse image search for it.

If it is a digital products or service, go to fiverr.com and search for the products keywords.

Find a service provider who offers the same service or multiple services providers that you can bundle to be the whole service.

If you can’t find suppliers you need to abandon that product, abandon it as it will be too hard and start again at 1b.

If you can find a supplier, then you need to find the wholesale price from the supplier or manufacturer from these sites.

1d) Profit Decision

The fourth part of Find Products, Services Or Solutions is a decision if you should pursue this product, service or solution.

There is a market, but you need to know if it is profitable.

Margin is revenue take costs.

Margin is the difference between the retail price and wholesale price.

Mark up is cost multiplied by a factor to give revenue.

Mark up is the wholesale price as expressed as a multiplier or percentage.

Don’t worry about margin, so aim for a 10x mark up to be profitable.

Based on this, you need to decide if you want to pursue that product, service or solution.

If it is not at least 10x markup, then abandon it as it will be too hard.

If it is unprofitable, then you need to repeat this step until you find a product, service or solution that is profitable.

If it is profitable, then move on to step 2, Hack Competitors.

2) Hack Competitors

The most important factors for Hacking Competitors is knowing the following:

Pipeline;
- Landing pages
Brand and Marketing and Sales Communication;
- Ads
Content;
Traffic sources; and
Engagement.

Without that, it will be very hard to hack them.

Well find these out by the following:

Market Research;
Collect Swipe;
Find Market Trends;
Out Do Competition;
Implement Changes;
Measure Changes; and
Repeat.

Let’s start with…

2a) Market Research

The first part of Hack Competitors is Market Research.

Once you have a product, service or solution, you need to hack your competitors.

You need to search Google for your product, service or solution or industry keywords to find your competitors, both direct and indirect – those up or downstream from your product, service or solution.

Upstream means a product, service or solution that is used before your product, service or solution.

Downstream means a product, service or solution that is used after your product, service or solution, usually a next sell or affiliate offer.

You need to list all in a spreadsheet including:

Name of website;
URL of website;
Product, service or solution offered;
Direct, up or downstream from you; and
Contact details.

Each URL will, of course, give you following Hacking Competitors factors from before:

Landing pages (via URL).

Next, load each competitor’s URL into Similarweb (https://www.similarweb.com.)

Similarweb finds and collects intelligence about websites.

Similarweb will show you:

Traffic quantity and quality (useful for partnerships);
Traffic Sources (Top Referring sites);
Amongst many other things…

This ticks off the following Hacking Competitors factors from before:

Parts of Marketing and Sales Communication; and
Traffic Sources.

Of the Traffic Sources (Top Referring sites) listed on Similarweb, copy those URLs into separate browsers to find ads that run on those sites that lead back to your competitor’s site.

For example, a competitors site, abc.com, may have a traffic source from xyz.com, so you would go to xyz.com and find ads on that site that direct to abc.com.

You also want to know the answers to:

How much traffic does each competitor get?
Where do they get traffic from? Referrals? Search? Display – Ads/publishers? What search Terms? What Social?

2b) Collect Swipe

Swiping is the marketing term for collecting competitors marketing materials.

The second part of Hack Competitors is swiping all their Hacking Competitors factors from before:

Pipeline;
- Landing pages;
Brand and Marketing and Sales Communication;
- Ads; and
Content.

This means you need to start swiping and collecting data on everything via screenshots.

You will start by going to publishers/referrals site, clicking on a competitor ad, then follow their entire marketing and sales pipeline:

A pipeline usually goes like this:

Ad with offer;
Landing page with offer (such as an opt-in or purchase);
Upsell/email follow-up offers;
Purchase Thank You page; and
Remarketing on other sites, you visit.

Basically, you are following their entire marketing and sales sequence, including purchasing, to see exactly what your competitors are doing to get, keep and grow prospects and customers, so you can reverse engineer and copy (without breaching copyright) to save you time , effort and money testing to see what works the best for your business.

Purchasing is important because after the purchase there are many things that occur for customers only and aren’t available to the public (AKA prospects).

The purchasing ticks off the final Hacking Competitors factors from before and allow you to go behind closed doors and see what else they do for:

Engagement.

Finally, you want to ask to join their affiliate program, again there are many things that occur for affiliate only and aren’t available to the public (AKA prospects).

Once you have done this, you need to repeat this for the rest of your competitors.

2c) Find Market Trends

The third part of Hack Competitors is to find trends in the Market.

Once you have completed your market research, you then need to start looking for trends and common denominators among all your competitors:

Pipeline;
- Landing pages including Upsells;
Brand and Marketing and Sales Communication;
- Ads including Retail Price;
Content;
Traffic sources; and
Engagement.

Capture all of these trend insights into a document with the same headers.

2d) Out Do Competitor’s

The fourth part of Hack Competitors is out doing your competitors.

Once you have found market trends, you then need to work out how your business can be better than all of these.

This comes down to a better value proposition, but also specifically:

A more premium brand ;
More persuasive Landing pages;
More compelling Brand and Marketing and Sales Communication;
More persuasive Ads;
More valuable Content; and
More valuable Engagement.

But it shouldn’t be on price.

2e) Implement Changes

The fifth part of Hack Competitors is implementing these changes you identified to outdo your competitors.

Once you have outdone your competitors, you then need to implement the changes.

This includes setting up:

Ads, paid content, affiliate or referral offers on the same referral and display site they do;
Setting up the same SEO keywords and backlinks on your pages they do;
Insert the same SEO keywords into your internal content;
Setting up same social media platforms and distributing content they have;
Setting up similar landing pages;
Setting up similar pipeline sequences for Engagement and Marketing and Sales Communication;
Etc.

2f) Measure Changes

The sixth part of Hack Competitors is measuring your implemented changes.

After you have implemented changes, you need to measure that your new changes are actually working.

You do this through split testing.

2g) Repeat

Now that you have finished this, it is a never-ending process of split testing, so you will repeat by going back to 2a).

Earnings Per Engagement: How To Measure Brand Awareness

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 08:31:27 +0000

Sometimes as a marketer your option is to utilize brand awareness rather than direct response.

And in that situation, you still want to measure its impact, and you can determine your Return On Investment.

Brand awareness could be described as the extent to which prospects and customers are aware of and familiar with your business.

Brand awareness relies on repetition, familiarity, relationship, credentials, reputation, association, comfort and so on.

In other words, prospects and customers know, like and trust you and you can deliver on promise.

The theory goes that when making a purchasing decision, prospects and customers will choose the products, service or solution that fits those criteria.

So, with brand awareness, you want to have your business familiar to prospects and customers.

The problem with brand awareness alone is that it doesn’t ask for a sale as direct response does.

In addition:

It takes a long time for it to work;
It takes a lot of money to work (especially with a lot of competitors); and
It is hard to measure until later.

If brand awareness is familiar to prospects and customers then how do you measure brand awareness?

Let’s look at what a prospect may be thinking based on brand awareness.

Repetition of the brand creates a sense of familiarity;
Then obviously know but also like and trust your brand because you have demonstrated the ability and willingness to deliver on a promise which creates a sense of believability;
Based on those two, the prospect looks further into your brand;
Then the prospect gets in contact with your brand; and
You measure the brand awareness.

Here are some examples of what may constitute brand awareness.

Brand awareness could be:

A non-direct response ad;
Book;
Branding;
Speaking;
Referral;
Testimonial;
Reputation;
Credential;
Credibility;
Media mentions;
Etc…

In most circumstances, these direct response activities will yield Impressions.

For example, a speech gig may have 1,000 attendees or Impressions/Reach/Engagement/Interest.

Media mentions can be found by asking the outlets for an ad rate, where their monthly impressions are printed.

However, it’s really hard to track Impressions of organic referrals.

Nonetheless, the following assets will give you more ideas of Impressions:

Inbound calls, SMS, emails, social media follows etc.;
Search traffic for your brand name via analytics (if your brand is big enough you can also use Google Keyword Planner or Google Trends);
Direct web traffic via analytics (again, if your brand is big enough you can also use Google Keyword Planner or Google Trends);
Survey responses;
Social listening for brand mentions;
Etc…

We look at these because prospects and customers have found your brand someway usually from brand awareness.

But still, you cannot isolate what brand awareness created each Impression because it’s not direct response.

You need to tally all of the Impressions mentioned previously (although they will be an approximate estimate, not an absolute.)

Once you have tallied these, how do you calculate brand awareness Return On Investment?

It’s difficult, but here is a formula:

The total cost of brand awareness campaign which is all Impressions mentioned previously divided by the tally of all Impressions, which will give you Cost Per Engagement.

For example, a $2,000 brand awareness campaign that creates 30,000 Impressions is $0.07 Cost Per Engagement.

So, then how do you measure how much revenue each Engagement created?

You use an Earnings Per Click formula or more accurately Earning Per Engagement.

Using the same data as before, if your product costs $100 and you sell 100 Products from the brand awareness campaign, you’ll have a 0.33% Pipeline CTR, then your EPC (or more accurately your EPE) will be is $0.33.

But there is even more value than just sales from brand awareness.

It’s like remarketing.

What has been seen cannot be unseen, and you are building mindshare.

This method is not completely accurate but is close enough.

How To Prevent Buyer’s Remorse

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 08:20:52 +0000

The day you close a customer is the day you start losing them.

As customers, we all want to be sure we’ve purchased the “right” one.

Why?

Because we want to get out of pain and towards gain, in the fastest, easiest way possible..

But if you don’t prevent buyer’s remorse, at best, you’ll get no:

Repeat customers;
Recommendations; or
Referrals;

And at worst:

Refunds, requests; or
Reported.

Buyer’s remorse is the:

Anxiety;
Fear;
Guilt; and
Regret.

That a customer has made a bad or wrong purchase.

The first two are future based.

The latter two are past based.

Buyer’s remorse is cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is where one thought is in opposition to another thought or thought in opposition to an action.

The buyer feels any psychological discomfort because their actions (the purchase of the product, service, or solution) does not match their thoughts (their expectation of the purchased item).

The Human Purchasing Process outlines following five steps:

STEP 1: Becoming aware of their needs;
STEP 2: Determining if they want to change;
STEP 3: Finding out about brands and products, services and solutions;
STEP 4: Convincing themselves that one (ideally your) brand and products, services and solutions are the best for their needs; and
STEP 5: Purchasing a product, service or solution.

At Step 4, excitement about your products, services or solution occurs.

This excitement increases adrenaline and dopamine in the bloodstream.

Dopamine is one of the most addictive naturally occurring human hormones!

Dopamine can be created by the expectation of new experiences (in this case a purchase.)

When the purchase is made, relief and euphoria are experienced, and this is the time when buyer’s remorse can strike.

It can happen between 60 seconds and 3 days or more.

If that relief and euphoria turns into regret and guilt, then buyer’s remorse has arrived, and you better deal with it.

The following factors influence this:

The more currencies invested;
High perceived consequences;
High price (creates high expectations of results);
Low reward or benefit;
Not forced to purchase (agency); and
More options and opportunity cost.

This is all illustrated below:

At this point customers have two options:

Continue to experience buyer’s remorse; or
Return to homeostasis and experience satisfaction.

How you manage these two, will seal the customer’s fate.

If it is the former, then a customer can ask for a:

Return the purchase for a refund (but sometimes they are too lazy, or it is too hard);
Repair (if it is faulty);
Replacement/exchange (if it is faulty);
Reimbursement (if it is faulty and the consumer repaired themselves); or
Re-supplying services (if it is faulty).

Or they can just keep it.

If that relief and euphoria turn into regret and guilt, it could be because of the following:

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, service or solution;
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;
Do not think the product, service or solution is valuable; and
Many, many more.

There are some psychological things at play here:

The approach motivational system; and
The avoidance motivational.

The approach motivational system focuses on what a prospect desires and is strong prior to purchase.

The avoidance motivational system helps customers deal with negativity and is strong post-purchase.

Before purchase, a prospect is overwhelmed by:

Pain;
Desire;
Options (Paradox of Choice);
Heighten possibilities;
Anticipation;
Contrarians with money;
Fear of loss;
Etc.

Then, at purchase, the customers have clarity of wisdom and wonder if really need this product and if they had been fooled:

After purchase, a customer is overwhelmed by:

Opportunity costs;
Lack of options (and now opportunity cost);
Etc.

As well as having internal questions like:

Where they rushed?;
Was it hyped?;
Was there a better price?
Did they think it through?;
Did they make an impulse decision?;
Did they make an error of judgement?;
Etc.

And as a rule of thumb, as long as your product, service or solution delivers the benefits promised, the customer will realize this eventually, but in the meantime, there are somethings you can do to help this realization occur.

To minimize the chance of buyer’s remorse, be proactive just before and at the Relief & Euphoria stage, that is, doing a thing in the sales process and post-sale (and certainly if a customer reached the Regret & Guilt stage):

Pre-Sale

Pre-sale: you can do the following in the following approximate order to reduce buyer’s remorse and make the purchase stick:

Give away freebies (these are commonly done at the start of the interaction);
Don’t pressure sell (there are laws around this);
Invite the prospect to discuss the purchase with any possible Blockers;
Offer a money back guarantee;
Include a bonus to add perceived value (this could be VIP club or user groups admission or a coupon towards a future purchase);
Discover and address any concerns they may have;
Use their name and personalize communication; and
Set expectations for what will happen after the purchase is made.

Post-Sale

Post-sale: you can do the following in the following approximate order to reduce buyer’s remorse and make the purchase stick:

Immediately deliver the product, service or solution;
Thank them for of their purchase and reassure them of the value and benefits of their purchase, that is moving them away from pain and or towards pleasure (this can be done in a handwritten snail mail if possible or phone call);
Give them a way to contact you for customer service;
Provide a Quick Start Guide (which shows how to use, consume and get the most out of the purchase to get results;
Offer an immediate upsell or one time offer that is complimentary what will get results with speed or automation, not a new product service or solution (the latter will destroy trust as it is not related to the original pain or gain);
Ask for a recommendation (this will solidify the reason for purchase in their mind);
Ask for a referral to another prospect or for them to become a promotional partner (this will reinforce that the customer made the right choice as they are now justifying their purchase to another. This is called Confabulation. Confabulation is where we create a story and rationalize with logic after the fact. It also the “Commitment and Consistency” principle of influence from Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The Commitment and Consistency principle says “we feel we must always align our outer actions and promises with our inner choices and systems, such as our beliefs and values.” Once we had some confirmation from others.)
Let the customer use the product, service or solution, so they can experience moving them away from pain and or towards pleasure (and ideally achieve that result);
Send Success Stories, as this will overcome the customer’s internal objection that product, service or solution will work and work for them;
Offer a loyalty program; and
Communicate and follow up with the customer (for at least the entire money back guarantee period).

Case Study: How Google’s Art & Culture App Got Brand Sharing Right

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 03:32:02 +0000

Google recently released the Arts & Culture app.

I’m not into Arts & Culture enough to download an app.

So how did I find this app and come about to writing about it?

Friends were sharing their selfie that was attached to a picture of a doppelganger located in an art museum somewhere around the world on their Facebook page.

Google’s Arts & Culture app allows users to take a selfie and through artificial intelligence find visually similar portraits in art collection and rank them by percentage similarity.

Then the app allows you to share the combined photo on various platforms.

Why Facebook?

Facebook ticks of many motivators for sharing because it has a viral effect:

Make them look good.
Entertains their friends; and
Helps define their identity.

The technology in itself is impressive, but so is the way they utilised Brand Sharing.

Brand Sharing has 3 elements:

Timing;
Location; and
Request.

Let’s explore how Google has utilized this….

1) Timing

The timing occurs when the user is in a positive mood after discovering a similar doppelganger.

Those who don’t, won’t share.

2) Location

The location occurs, in-app after discovering a similar doppelganger.

3) Request

The request is:

Organic;
Non incentivised;
User-generated content and communication; and
Viral (newness, interest, uniqueness and humour).

By simply using the words “Share” under the doppelganger.

All of this is designed for users to click on the content sales script.

The Future Of Marketing: Predictions For 2018

Orren Prunckun — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 22:30:17 +0000

Approximate read time: 4 minutes

The New Year is almost upon us…

So it’s worth looking forward to spot opportunities.

I also work heavily in the marketing, and I get to see a lot that has happened and is currently happening in this industry.

Each year, I think about what the future looks like for marketing, particularly:

What will work in the next 12 months?; and
What will work in the next 5+ years?

Thinking about these answers will help you get ahead of your competitors.

There are some big shifts and trends occurring in marketing, and I outline areas that matter in your business and what you can take advantage of:

Let’s get started…

Predictions For Market Research

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their Market Research:

Machine Learning (that is, the replication of how humans learn) will allow brands to pre-emptive marketing and predict (without a search trigger) when a purchase will be made, even before the prospect consciously knows they will purchase;
Computer Vision (that is, visual and audible perception) will allow brands to monitor attention, monitor visual representations of their brand as well as monitor demographical information all in real time; and
Sensors and biometrics (that is tracking human functions) will allow brands to measure prospect attention, emotion and activity in real time.

Predictions For Marketing & Sales Pipelines

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their marketing pipelines:

Users Interfaces (as opposed to User Experience) will become more important for brands, as long as the Users Interface is consistent and congruent in its design with the brand perception; and
Marketing & Sales Pipelines will become more mixed, distributed and integrated.

Predictions For Marketing & Sales Communication

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their marketing and sales communication:

Facebook’s Messenger app will take over email communication for being the marketing and sales communication delivery tool of choice for consumers.

Predictions For Marketing Content

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their content marketing:

Vertical (unless on Snapchat), short video content that has the option of no sound and user controls will rise as a modality of choice for content consumption;
Likewise, image content will also rise as a modality of choice for content consumption;
Live and semi-live (Snapchat Snaps, Snapchat Stories, Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories) content rise as a modality of choice for content consumption;
Virtual and Augmented Reality content will start to become a viable modality for content by brands;
Brands will need to optimize all content for mobile;
Content will become more entertainment and experience-based;
Content will become more mixed, distributed and integrated; and
The free-line will move more to the free side and brands will need to think hard how they deliver and capture value based on that.

Predictions For Advertising

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their advertising:

Vertical (unless it’s on Snapchat), short video ads, that has the option of no sound and user controls will become a popular ad option for brands;
Likewise, image content will become a popular ad option for brands;
Virtual and Augmented Reality ads will start to become a viable ad option for brands;
Brands will need to optimize all ads for mobile;
Incentive-based and interactive ads will become popular for brands due to their increased user engagement;
Ads and content delivered by social media “Influencers” will become a popular ad option for brands;
Machine Learning will allow brands to dynamically serve targeted offers from a vault of ad creative at the right time to the right prospects based on real-time targeting criteria;
Drone ads will become a viable option for brands; and
Ad offer will work better if they are for content and land on content.

Predictions For Search Engine Optimization

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their search engine marketing:

Computer Vision will allow prospects real-time visual recognition of products and allow them to visually search for them via existing search engines, which will also recognize and index video content;
Speech recognition via Siri, Google Now, Google Home, Amazon Echo will allow prospects real-time interactive product search; and
Brands will need to adhere to Search Engine Optimization best practice for all product images and video content.

Predictions For Social Media Marketing

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their social media marketing:

Social media accounts will replace websites as the digital catalogue allowing users to stay native on the platform and platforms will reward brands for that retention by delivering more attention; and
Social Media distribution of content will take over as the dominant content distribution channel.

Predictions For Brand Sharing

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their Brand Sharing:

Incentivized, user-generated will become important for brands.

Predictions For Sales

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their Sales:

After the stabilization of volatility, Cryptocurrencies will again become a viable payment option;
1-on-1 and unique experiences will become vital for offline sales; and
The Internet Of Things will allow brands to pre-emptive marketing and predict when prospects needs arise.

Predictions For Marketing & Sales Engagement

The following will become opportunities for smart marketers with their marketing and sales engagement:

Online and offline will begin to be more integrated and seamless; and
Online will begin to replicate the offline User Experience.

Try these out over the next 12 months and let me know how they go for you…

You can get 21 printed lead generating Process Maps for free, here.

And if you’re serious about marketing and selling more, the logical next step is to contact me to help you do it yourself, have me do it with you, or have it all done for you.

This may be the momentum you need to get great marketing and sales results.

Or do you simply want more like this?

Join below to be notified immediately about new content and more. No annoying daily emails and no spam – just good content when it’s posted.

Gaining Customer Loyalty: How To Request & Reward Compliance

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 22:30:58 +0000

Approximate read time: 4 minutes

Once you have answered objections, you then have the ability to Gain Loyalty.

Bikies, pimps, cults all build loyalty the in similar ways.

None of these groups engage in any outreach or advertising.

They build a brand that people want to be involved in.

They don’t convince or change people mind, but rather offer something that some people are already looking for.

Recruits come to them, just like a vampire has to be invited in.

Once that opt-in, request or “application” occurs, loyalty is gained by investing and complying with requests and being rewarded for that.

In other words a:

Request;
Compliance; and
Reward.

This is important because it allows you to build loyalty to your brand and thus sell more.

Truth be told, that the Rapport Pyramid gains loyalty at each level.

The following diagram shows that with each level is a request:

Loyalty is showing a strong allegiance to a brand.

It inoculates against losing that customer to competition.

And how do you do that?

The board Gaining Customer Loyalty looks like this:

Branding;
Opt-in;
Reward;
Request;
Compliance;
Reward; and
Repeat 4-6 indefinitely.

For Bikies, it looks like this:

Hang Around;
Prospect;
Probation; and
Member.

Hang Around

A Hang Around is simply that someone who hangs around the club members.

They get to taste some of what it is like to be a Member.

This is a continuation of the clubs branding that attracted them in the first place.

Prospect

A Prospect is a Hang Around that has been identified as a potential Member.

Based on the taste some of what it is like to be a Member, a Hang Around has Opted-in by showing their desire to be a Member.

Club Members don’t invite the Hang Around to join; the Hang Around needs to opt-in to the club by applying.

The application is purely psychological.

They can only take what has been given to them.

Probationary

After the Hang Around has applied, the club rewards them by making them a Probationary.

But the Probationary is as it is defined, provisional on a request.

The club makes requests of them.

This is to build investment and also screen them for values.

This process of request and reward is repeated.

And if the Probation has sufficiently invested and match for values, they are rewarded as a Member, but their Chaperone and agreement of other members.

Member

The Chaperone is accountable for them for the life of their club membership.

How can you use this to build loyalty?

Embody a brand that applies to specific people looking for that.

That branding attracts and qualifies the correct people.

Introduce those people to your group and ask them to get involved in that community.

This does two things, allows them to get a further taste of the brand’s culture.

But also for that person to find a potential mentor and for members to meet them.

They need to apply to become a trainee.

The trainee process should be 3 months long.

They will have certain tasks to do, and they must align with the brand’s values.

Upon completion of the 3 months, the tasks and alignment with the brand’s values, they need to be certified by the mentor and 3 members.

They then become a member and are inducted into the organization.

How To Grow Your Social Media Accounts

Orren Prunckun — Tue, 12 Dec 2017 22:30:10 +0000

Approximate read time: 4 minutes

Once you have created and distributed your content and content sales scripts to your social media profiles, you really only have two options for growing the followers of those accounts:

Proactive growth; and
Organic and paid growth.

You have control over the entire former, a little of the latter and the former is much cheaper, so that will be the focus of this guide.

The process goes like this:

You send a notification to your target prospects;
If your prospects DO NOT follow back, then no further action is required, they are lost; and
If your prospects follow back, they are not in your database, and you can distribute more content and content sales scripts.

As simple as 1, 2, 3…

Here is how it works for each of the major Social Media platforms (I suggest you focus on these, depending on who your target prospect is):

Twitter (B2C)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Seed with fake followers, I don’t condone this, but if you do this it should be only be done for a new account;
Wait a few weeks in case the platform bans your account;
Find your target prospects;
Like their media or follow them;
Unfollow if necessary; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

LinkedIn Personal (B2B)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Find your target prospects;
View their profile and/or send a Connection Request with a reason ; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

Facebook Personal (B2C and B2B)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Find your target prospects;
Send a Friend Request; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

Facebook Group (B2B)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Invite your Friends (if they fit your target prospects) and internally cross promote accounts; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

Medium (B2C and B2B)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Link your Facebook personal account which automatically follows any of your Friends on Medium;
Find your target prospects;
Send their writing a clap; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

Instagram (B2C)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Seed with followers, I don’t condone this, but this should be only for a new account;
Wait a few weeks in case the platform bans your account;
Find your target prospects;
Like their media or follow them;
Unfollow if necessary; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

Pinterest (B2C)

Create and distribute content and content sales scripts;
Find your target prospects;
Like their media or follow them;
Unfollow if necessary; and
Create and distribute more content and content sales scripts.

This leaves us with organic and paid platforms:

YouTube;
Facebook Page; and
LinkedIn Page.

My suggestion with these is, organically allow your target prospects to find and follow (opt-in) them (perhaps with some internal cross-promotion of accounts.)

There are some tricks that involve converting an existing Facebook profile to a page that can boost a page by up to 5,000 followers, but that is beyond this guide.

The Testimonial Collection Process: How To Request, Capture & Publish Testimonials

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 21 May 2016 23:50:03 +0000

Approximate read time: 13 minutes

Positive reviews are important for your brand.

If you can get testimonials, success stories and case studies for your brand then you may very well have an easier time selling to other prospects and customers.

If you cannot get testimonials, success stories and case studies for your brand then you may very well have a harder time selling to other prospects and customers.

Why is this?

Testimonials, success stories and case studies offer the following benefits to your brand.

Relatability;
Credibility;
Believability;
And much, much more

These benefits create social proof (authority) from third parties that helps your brand overcome sales concerns and objections when you are selling and negotiating.

Selling is not just about buying – it’s about helping people get outcomes and results (sales, sponsorship, partnerships, romantic relationships, jobs, customers, ambassadors and so on). In my opinion, it is one of the most valuable things you can do in life.

Social proof is powerful, Robert Caidini wrote in his book, Influence.

“People will do things that they see other people doing,” which in this case is follow and engage on social media if others are doing the same.

According to Australian Consumer Law, testimonials etc. “can give consumers confidence in a product or service on the basis that another person – particularly a celebrity or well-known person – is satisfied with the goods or services.”

Taken further, “misleading representations can persuade customers to buy something to their detriment, based on belief in the testimonial.”

Before we move on, let’s define some terms and explore the differences between testimonials, success stories and case studies…

Put simply, they are all condensed versions of a sales script with a focus on a prospect or customer point-of-view to illustrate a point on behalf of a brand.

A testimonial or recommendation or endorsement or praise or accolade is a statement testifying to a brand’s character and qualifications.

They are statements about an experience with a product, service or solution.

They are generally anything under a paragraph to a sentence long.

A success story is an account of the achievement of success, fortune, or fame by someone.

They have an emotional context and are more personal than a testimonial and they highlight a transformation or an outcome.

They are slightly longer than a testimonial – a paragraph or two.

A case study is demonstration of development over a period of time.

They are more detailed, factual or analytical and come from a brand perspective.

They are slightly longer than a case study – two or more paragraphs.

So next up, how do you go about obtaining reviews?

Here are the elements:

STEP 1: Feedback Request;
STEP 2: Testimonial Request;
STEP 3: Capture Permission; and
STEP 4: Publish.

Let’s begin with…

1) Feedback Request

…Before we get started, it’s worth discussing where to ask for a testimonial or feedback.

As general practice you should be following up with prospects and customers for testimonials and feedback at any time they have a touch point with your brand.

That could be everything from:

Website;
Advertising;
Publicity;
Content;
Messages;
Story telling;
Marketing Communication;
Sales Communication;
Product Delivery;
User Experience;
After Sales Customer Service;
And so on…

So when do you ask for a testimonial and what is the best timing?

The best time for asking prospects and customers for testimonials and feedback is directly after they have used the product, service or solution (both free and paid) and got results;
The second best time for asking prospects and customers for testimonials and feedback is while they are using your products, service or solution and having a positive experience, particularly if it is ongoing use;
The third best time for asking prospects and customers for testimonials and feedback is right after they buy or purchase the product, service or solution, at the same time you ask for them to refer or share your brand.

But it’s most important that they have had a positive experience with you brand before you ask.

There are two ways to get testimonials:

Organic; and
Proactive.

Organic happens without your brand’s input.

Proactive happens with your brand’s input.

On the one hand, organic endorsements are ones that prospects and customers give without asking, such as on your social media or review sites.

On the other hand, proactive testimonials are ones where your brand reaches out to prospects and customers asking them proactively to give one.

This also means there is a two proactive ways to ask for testimonials and feedback:

Indirectly – ask for feedback; and
Directly – ask for a testimonial.

Indirect is better and more reliable and this is what this step is about.

This step will also discuss organic reviews.

As a rule, use feedback for a personal brand as testimonials can seem self-promoting and use testimonials for a product, service or solution.

This guide will show you how to take advantage of both.

Now to the first step…

This step is about proactively asking prospects and customers for feedback.

Feedback could be defined as their reaction to your product, service or solution.

Feedback doesn’t mention the word testimonial, and thus will reduce any resistance prospects and customers have about giving a testimonial.

This feedback can still be used as a testimonial as we will soon see.

When requesting feedback, you want to make it easy for the prospect or customer giving it.

Prospects and customers have many options to give feedback so give them instructions of how to do it easily.

They could record it in text form and send to you via:

Email;
SMS;
Social Media;
And so on…

The exact wording for asking prospects and customers for feedback is beyond the scope of this guide.

Sometimes prospects and customers take time to think and create feedback.

You have some options to speed this process up for them and make it easy.

This could be writing the dot points for what you would like them to cover.

This is great because it allows you to guide them and control to some degree what the feedback says about your brand.

Here we come across the first decision tree:

If prospects and customers respond negatively to your request for feedback, meaning potentially they had a negative experience with your product, service or solution, then you need to address this through customer service.

Customer service is beyond scope of guide.

If prospects and customers do not respond to your request for feedback, then you need to follow-up with them.

If you still don’t hear back, then you do not need to take any further action.

If prospects and customers respond positively to your request for feedback, meaning they potentially had a positive experience with your product, service or solution, then you need to ask them if you could use their feedback as a testimonial.

Likewise, if you have discovered an organic testimonial or feedback posted online about your product, service or solution then you begin the Testimonial Collection Process here.

This is a testimonial permission request that asks prospects and customers for permission to use their feedback as a testimonial.

Starting with feedback and then transitioning to testimonial as this step suggests, again reduces any resistance prospects and customers have about giving a testimonial as it is innocuous – it’s only feedback.

The exact wording for requesting testimonial permission is beyond the scope of this guide.

Next we come to the second decision tree:

If prospects and customers say yes to your testimonial permission request, you then need to capture the testimonial in a non-anonymous way.

This means taking a screenshot of the testimonial with identifiers.

An identifier in this situation could be (in descending order of credibility):

A video of the prospect or customer;
An audio clip of the prospect or customer;
A photo of a prospect or customer;
The prospect’s or customer’s full name;
The prospect’s or customer’s first name;
The prospect’s or customer’s credentials; and
The prospect’s or customer’s location.

The modalities for capturing (and displaying this) that relate to this non-anonymous testimonial are:

Screenshot of text;
Digital text; and
Physical text.

This is because you have asked for feedback not a testimonial and a prospect or customer would not normally capture their feedback in video or audio form.

Alternatively, if prospects and customers say no to your testimonial permission request, then you will still capture the testimonial but in an anonymous way.

This means taking a screenshot of the testimonial WITHOUT identifiers.

Anonymous testimonials are okay too, but they should be your second preference.

An identifier in this situation could be (in descending order of credibility):

A video of the prospect or customer;
A photo of a prospect or customer;
The prospect’s or customer’s full name;
The prospect’s or customer’s first name only;
The prospect’s or customer’s title or position; and
The prospect’s or customer’s location.

The first three would need to be blocked out to protect their identity as they have not given permission to associate their testimonial with themselves, thus no identifiers.

The modalities for capturing (and displaying this) that relate to this anonymous testimonial are:

Screenshot of text;
Digital text; and
Physical text.

Again, this is because you have asked for feedback not a testimonial and a prospect or customer would not normally capture their feedback in video or audio form.

When information is blocked out to protect their identity, a screen shot is best evidence that real person said it, rather than text modality.

Of course, the exact details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this guide.

This step is about requesting feedback.

This leads us to the Testimonial Request step…

2) Testimonial Request

…This step is about requesting a testimonial.

The alternative to proactively asking for feedback is directly asking for a testimonial.

This may increase resistance with prospects and customers, so that is why it is listed as the second option.

Here is the third decision tree:

If prospects and customers say no to your testimonial request, then you do not need to take any further action.

If you don’t hear back from your testimonial request, you then need to follow up.

If still don’t hear back, then you do not need to take any further action.

If prospects and customers say yes to your testimonial request, then you need to capture the non-anonymous testimonial.

This request is about asking prospects and customers for a testimonial – this means you will use an identifier.

An identifier in this situation could be (in descending order of credibility):

A video of the prospect or customer;
An audio clip of the prospect or customer;
A photo of a prospect or customer;
The prospect’s or customer’s full name;
The prospect’s or customer’s first name;
The prospect’s or customer’s title or position; and
The prospect’s or customer’s location.

The modalities for capturing (and displaying this) in order of credibility that relate to this non-anonymous testimonial are:

Video;
Audio;
Images;
Screenshot of text;
Digital text; and
Physical text.

Here we have added video, audio and images because you have asked for a testimonial and a prospect or customer could capture their testimonial in video, audio or image form.

When requesting a testimonial, like with requesting feedback, you want to make it easy for prospects and customers giving it.

Prospects and customers have many options.

Give them instruction of how to give a testimonial easily.

They could record it in the following forms:

Video recorded on their smart phone;
Audio recorded on their smart phone;
Photo recorded on their smart phone;
Digital text; and
Physical text.

And sent to you via:

Email;
SMS;
Social Media;
And so on…

The exact wording for asking prospects and customers for testimonials is beyond the scope of this guide.

Sometimes prospects and customers need to take time to think and create testimonials.

You have some options to speed this process up for them and again make it easy:

You can write the testimonial for them and send to them to review and edit it for their own voice so it is not a duplicate; and
The alternative that allows you to scale is write dot points for what you would like them to cover.

The first option is hard to scale for your brand if you have lots of prospects and customers as you will have to write new and unique testimonials each time.

Either of these versions is great because it allows you to guide them and control to some degree what the testimonial says about your brand.

Of course, the exact details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this guide.

This step is about requesting a testimonial.

This leads us to the Capture Permission step…

3) Capture Permission

…This step is about capturing permission.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room…

False and misleading testimonials.

NOTE: What follows is not legal advice.

But it is unlawful to make, or use, false or misleading testimonials.

You can read the Competition and Consumer Act here: http://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2015C00327.

Here are some guidelines that may help you comply:

Testimonials need to be true and correct;
They need to be from real customers about their experience with your product, service or solution; and
By law you are required to have proof that testimonials are true and correct and from real customers about their experience with your product, service or solution.

The easiest way to capture permission is via screen shots of permission granted in the previous steps.

You want to use testimonials “as is”, without any editing as this shows it’s real and also complies with the Act.

“As is” versions may not look polished, but this is a good thing as it shows it is from a real person.

Of course, the exact details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this guide.

This step is about capturing permission.

This leads us to the Publish step…

4) Publish

…This step is about publishing the testimonial.

Once you have received and captured permission, it’s time to publish.

Capture and post the testimonial in its original form – again this shows it’s from a real person.

However, you could translate the original content into other modalities in the following deciding cascading order:

Video;
Audio;
Image;
Screenshot of text; and
Digital text.

Or you could publish multiple modalities of the same testimonials for different learning styles.

In terms of laying out the testimonials, vertical is best as that is how physical and digital content is formatted.

You should schedule in collecting testimonials continually and on a regular basis.

Clichéd shampoo instructions indicate you should use the product, service or solution then rinse and repeat the process. You will do the same here – continuously repeating.

Of course, the exact details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this guide.

This step is about publishing feedback and testimonials.

Take Action

You made it…

You now have a solid plan for navigating testimonials to increase your marketing and sales.

That’s the full Testimonial Collection Process, and it will be more than enough for you to get started on your own.

You can get the printed illustrated Process Map of this and 20 others for free, here

And if you’re serious about marketing and selling more, the logical next step is to contact me to help you do it yourself, have me do it with you, or have it all done for you.

This maybe the momentum you need to get great marketing and sales results.

Now let’s learn about The Marketing & Sales Launch Process.

Or do you simply want more like this?

Join below to be notified immediately about new content and more. No annoying daily emails and no spam – just good content when it’s posted.