|
|
I still get spa owners - even
clients who have benefited hugely from it—having a crack at me about
‘my’ style of cheesy, corny, in-your-face, tabloidy kind of
marketing.
Especially affected by this head-up-the-arse attitude are the
so-called ‘professional’ types who, despite massive evidence to the
contrary, continue to insist blindly that this kind of direct
response marketing is way too ‘low-brow’ for their clients or target
market.
Worst offenders are larger equipment and product departments of Spa
Marketing Business, claiming the managing directors of companies are
way too sophisticated’ for anything other than glossy brochures and
expensive lunches where nothing is sold.
One of my mentors Dan Kennedy latest newsletter alerted me to a
wonderful incident which shows just how dumb, muddle-headed and
plain ignorant these kind of people are.
The story comes from the online edition of Wired magazine, for more
than a dozen years the international arbiter of everything that’s
cool, new and relevant in the electronic age.
In its business section (www.wired.com/business) under the headline
Swollen Orders Show Spam's Allure it reports on a security flaw at a
website operated by marketers of penis enlargement products.
This security flaw offered a lovely insight into just who buys this
stuff, reports Wired.
An order log left exposed (?) at one of the sites operated by
Amazing Internet Products showed the identity of all 6,000 people
who responded to spam email (yep, just like the ones you get almost
every day in your inbox) and bought—at $US50 a bottle—the Pinnacle
penis enlargement pills over a 4 week period.
Most bought two bottles or more, so that’s $US 1million in sales!
The subject line of the spam email read
Make Your Penis HUGE
Here are some of the buyers:
The manager of a 6-billion dollar managed fund, who had two bottles
sent to him at his Park Avenue office in New York City.
The CEO of a California based aircraft parts manufacturer used his
company American Express card to pay for six bottles.
A restaurant owner, a chiropractor, a veterinarian, a NASA engineer,
numerous other corporate executives, the coach of a school lacrosse
team, etc.
Worth noting: these were all affluent people, well-educated,
supposedly sophisticated, yet they fell to a true spammer, whose
website contained no proper address, no contact phone number, and
who used fake return email addresses of innocent third parties.
(The owner of this website, by the way, was identified by Wired News
as Braden Bournival, a 19-year-old school drop-out who also happens
to be a master chess player—he ran away from a Wired reporter when
confronted at a chess tournament.)
The point is this: if you consider your customers and prospects are
too sophisticated, to well educated, too sceptical, way ‘above’ the
kind of marketing and sales scripts I advocate (as does every other
true direct response marketer I know or know of) then you are simply
wrong.
Which leads me to: selling on emotion, not logic. Education,
sophistication, social status, environmental circumstances, health
nor intelligence have any bearing whatsoever on the reasons people
buy stuff.
A dirt poor, subsistence farmer in the backblocks of China will make
a buying decision based on exactly the same parameters as the CEO of
a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And
that single, over-riding factor is Hope.
Hope that this purchase will make his life in some way more
attractive, his health better, make him more attractive to women,
give his ego a boost. The farmer and the CEO will both buy to avoid
pain, feed their pride, erase feelings of inadequacy.
It is the emotion of hope, not logic, that has erstwhile
intelligent, sophisticated captains of industry reaching for their
credit cards and buying penis enlargement pills.
Nobody buys insurance through logic. They buy out of fear. Nobody
buys a new car because they need a new car. They buy one because
they want one. It makes them feel good.
Nobody, but nobody buys investment advice on logic, they buy it out
of greed.
People want to believe that what you say about your product or
service is true. Despite all the evidence to the contrary (or lack
of evidence in support), the desire to believe will overcome the
nagging little voice of logic every time, if, and only if, The
promise you make of your product or service is bold enough,
appealing enough, and is so well-targetted that it overpowers any
hesitation or resistance.
 Recently
I did a complete make-over of an ad for a beauty salon. The task was
to craft a stunningly bold promise, with a headline (which I stole
from Gary Halbert and re-modelled to fit the circumstances) that
forced the reader to keep reading, together with a great offer.
Here’s how the ad turned out:
There is nothing here that relies on logic to make the sale.
It is all emotion….because
clearly, there is nothing logical about why women spend vast sums of
money to make themselves look better, sexier, more attractive.
(Incidentally, at its first showing, this ad produced a return on
investment of something like 3 to 1)
Similarly, I wrote a Yellow Pages ad for a carpet cleaning client
which, unlike every other carpet cleaning ad appearing in the new
Yellow Pages, pitches their services based on price alone, instead
based its pitch on fear.
Fear of the horrible, health-damaging bugs and sludge which lurk in
everybody’s carpet.
Yet some clients take an awful lot of convincing that this tabloidy,
‘cheap and nasty’ method of attracting attention and making sales is
the only effective way to go.
I constantly, tiresomely have
to battle the myopic business owner who insists, despite all the
evidence to the contrary, that “I wouldn’t buy off that ad, it’s too
tacky.”
Let me make this crystal clear:
YOU and YOUR opinions on the worth of an ad or sales letter are
inconsequential.
The only opinions you should listen to are those of your customers,
expressed in orders received.
To re-enforce this, I quote Dan Kennedy thus:
"You need a sensible criteria to use in deciding whose opinions you
pay attention to.
“Most people easily give undeserved expert status to their
unemployed brother-in-law, next door neighbour, butcher, bartender
and spouse.
“If Warren Buffet has financial advice for you, welcome it. If Jimmy
Buffet has financial advice, consider it.
“If your sister-in-law, who watched Suze Orman on QVC for 20
minutes, has financial advice for you, ignore it. Anyone who wants
their opinions about a subject taken seriously ought to earn that
right through study and experience.
“Next time you're on a jetliner, hope the pilot doesn't turn the
controls over to his girlfriend because she has an opinion about
landing planes."
Amen.
Spa marketing
Spa Ads was brought to you by Greg Milner or Worldwide Salon
Marketing. |
About the
Author...
For nearly 19 years,
Greg was Executive Producer of News for Channels 7 & 9. Since 1996
he's advised and coached large and small companies on their public
relations and marketing strategies. In 2004, one of those clients
was a salon owner who complained there were no 'off-the-shelf' tools
for the salon and spa industry to help them get more clients, and
increase their average client spend. Later that year, Greg and salon
sales specialist Jill Groves launched the Essential Salon Owner's
Marketing Toolkit. By mid-2006, these simple tools were being
used profitably by 587 salons and spas in 14 countries.
Click for more information
Jill Groves, author of
'Selling with Energy' coaching salon & spa owners on how to increase
sales...and get staff to 'like crazy'...without them even realizing
it.
Click for
more information
Salon owners listen
intently as Greg Milner reveals the myths - and truth - about what
actually works in salon & spa marketing
Click for
more information |
