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"Ten Tall Tales of Traditional Marketing That Cost You Tons" Tall Tale #1 - Advertising Sells Products By Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller

Advertising. We've all tried it at least once. For purpose of this discussion, let's define advertising as any form of marketing one pays for. From business cards, flyers, and mailers to billboards, TV spots, and newspaper display ads. Advertising is everywhere. And almost every business in world can benefit from it somehow.

The problem with advertising lies in its traditional placement in marketing cycle. Advertising usually occurs after a product or service has been conceived, designed, implemented, and even consumed - and then only when sales aren't as expected. Advertising is generally used as a surface treatment…a marketing salve. Your product won't sell itself? Nobody's using your service? Just do a little advertising and things should turn around. Not likely.

For last 50 years this has been primary approach of advertisers and agencies alike. For many years it worked. But now, traditional advertising media are dying a slow death. In 1960, it was possible to reach 90% of housewives in one week by placing ads on 3 TV networks. In 1994 average household had less than 30 TV channels. Today, average home enjoys more than 100. Newspaper readership is down, XFM radio technology is creeping in, Internet has become primary information resource for many Americans, and there are more niche magazines than ever. Market segmentation is occurring at an historical rate just as number of marketing messages we see each day is. According to market positioning expert Jack Trout, average American is exposed to 4,000 marketing messages per day.

Can You Control Your Customer's Mind?

Is it possible to control your customer's 'buying' decision? Let me start off with an example. Say many people selling bags in one place and John wants a bag. John buys bag with most attractive packaging.

What influenced his decision? The packaging. This bag had something better. So in a different view, this bag influenced 'buying decision' of John. This is just a simple example to get you familiar with concept.

Almost all of modern marketing campaigns are designed to be effective from customer's point of view. They all try to control customer's feelings. You must follow trend or you'll be a loser.

Just brainstorm / think what can influence decision to buy 'your product'. You can come up with a lot. Call each of them a strategy and jot them down in a paper. I will discuss 3 generic strategies that can be used with any business and how to apply them, so it will give you some idea as what to think of and how to apply them.

1. Curiosity

2. Because / Reason Why

3. Greed

Curiosity

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What is it? Curiosity can be defined as "the desire to know unexplored" in simple terms. People want to know things that many others don’t know. They like to discover ‘secrets’ that only some people know. The desire to know is a compelling force in marketing, so we have:

* Secrets of Diet Industry Uncovered

* What Time Share Companies Don't Want You To Know

* Msteries of A Youthful Appearance Revealed

* The Hidden Keys of Car Buying

People don’t want

* How to Diet Successfully or

* A Guide to Buying Cars

for example. First set of titles surely outshines second set of titles because former takes advantage of curiosity. You must design your advertising in a way that arouses curiosity. Getting to see powerful of curiosity? (When compared two sets above)

Because / Reason Why

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