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The Motivated Marketing Letter |
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July
31, 2003 Flutter, Flutter, Sizzle: Marketing Like a Moth |
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At the end of July, the three H's (hazy, hot,
and humid) make New Jersey into some kind of moth paradise. By the millions, moths feel the mysterious pull of lunar tides
or orgonotic flow or whatever they groove on and all descend on my front
stoop, waiting patiently for one of my kids to hold the screen door open
just a little too long... I don't mind, really. These fascinating little creatures have taught me more about marketing than all 18 of the Fortune 500 combined. You see, when they're not vaporizing themselves in the gas flame under the kettle or smashing their cute little bodies repeatedly into the plastic fluorescent light cover, it turns out that moths navigate in incredible simple yet effective ways that we can all learn from...
What Does This Have to Do with Marketing? In marketing, in strategic planning, in virtually all aspects of our business and personal lives, we can learn a lot from moths. The Metaphor I'm Not Going to Dwell On I'm not going to make a big metaphor out of the "hey, let's all die in this flame" thing they have going. They think it's the moon, and for millions of years no moth has ever gotten a bloody nose by bumping into the moon, and so they use the moon (or flames or certain types of electric light) as a constant point of reference for their location. If it weren't for us humans and our dangerous artificial moons, it would be a fine strategy. All I'll say about it is, make sure the big picture goal you're orienting all your actions around truly is where you want to be, and isn't a big flickering sucker-punch masquerading as something you want. I know too many people with "Is This All There Is?" Syndrome to think that moths are the only creatures foolish enough to navigate their lives toward destruction. How Moths Find Love I want to talk about a lesser-known aspect of moth navigation, one I try to emulate myself in my own business and with clients. Moths don't have a lot of time to fly around in their lives. A few weeks only, after weeks of crawling around in the dirt as caterpillars, hiding from birds and preying mantises and my son with a stick. So their main objective during the summer is to find a mate and then, well, mate. Just like our main business objective is usually to find a new prospect and then, well, mate. Male moths never fly in a straight line when they're looking for love. They zigzag, bouncing around the air in seemingly random patterns. They're using their sense of smell to seek out a mate. Here's how. Male moths are attracted to the pheromones (lead generating advertisements) put out by female moths of the same species. These pheromones linger in the air for a while, gradually becoming fainter after the moth who released them has flown away. The seeker plays a game of "hotter-colder" to find a mate. The male moth flies to a particular spot and assesses the pheromone density of the air. The moth knows that a female has been here, but doesn't know where she's gone since. So he zigs to a second location and compares it with the first. If it's more pheromone-dense, he's on the right track. So he zags to a third spot and compares it with the second. If it's not, he zigs back to the first spot and tries again. Small, controlled, single-variable tests! The gold standard of good marketing! How cool is that? How Marketers Find Business Direct response, "Leads into Gold" marketing is all about testing, about zigging and zagging until you find what works. A client of mine is sending a flyer into his neighborhood via some friendly newspaper delivery people. We're split-testing two versions of the flyer, one with a logo and one without. 250 of each, and we'll code and track response to see if it makes a difference. The winner becomes the control, and the next test will try some other small change. We'll always keep the winner, and always try to beat it. If you're looking to increase your web traffic, you can apply this principle to one of the two main pay-per-click search engines, Google's Adwords. You can run two versions of the same ad and compare how many people click on each. Keep the winner, and replace the loser with another ad until it becomes the new winner. Constant testing, constant improvement. My ads for Leads into Gold now have a click-through rate of 2.4%. When I started with Adwords two months ago, the best ad I could write had a click-through rate of 0.3%. I'm eight times better now than I was in May! Did I improve 800% by studying, by thinking, by maturing? Ha! I improved by testing, by tweaking every ad and keeping the better of the two. I'm no different from the moth flying back and forth in space, always comparing the pheromone density of the last two places I've been. No smarter, and no dumber. One more point about this method of moving forward. It rewards action, any action, even misguided and wrong action (up to a point). Imagine playing the "hotter-colder" game and not moving, because you're afraid of making a bad move. Could you ever win? Now start the game by moving in the exact wrong direction. What happens? You find out you're "colder," and you move in another direction. Within a few seconds, you're heading for the hidden treasure. Being wrong in a small, correctable way is far better than waiting to be completely right. So making a small commitment to a wrong direction actually gets us to the right direction faster than standing still and thinking ourselves to perfection. So let's all get out there and market like moths! After all, we've only got a summer to find love.
Only a fool tests the water with both feet.
I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that
don't work.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible
objections must be first overcome.
Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But
you learn, my God you learn.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more
honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
A conclusion is the place where you got tired of
thinking.
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1. The next marketing piece you send out to 50 people or more, try a split-test. Come up with two very similar pieces, and change one thing you're wondering about. If you're not sure, start with the headline - the first message people see, the one that helps them figure out whether to pay attention or not. As randomly as you can, divide your list in two, and send Version A to one group and Version B to another. Keep track of who gets which one, or insert some tracking device into the response mechanism (different email addresses, department numbers, secret code words for special deals, etc.).
2. At first, it can be hard to think of things to test. A partial list, in addition to headlines, includes placement of items - call to action, testimonials, Q & A, etc; form of the piece - tri-fold, postcard, letter, box with toy surprise, etc.; the "guts" of the offer - discount, bonus, special deal for first 50, special deal until next Friday, etc.; and design - font type, font size, paper color, use of highlighting, margins, etc.
3. Sign up for http://adwords.google.com and play around for a while. Be careful of your spend - the dollars can quickly get away from you if you're not paying attention. Check daily for the first two weeks and see how much traffic you're getting and how much money you're paying. For every ad group, use one keyword and two rotating ads. After roughly 30 clicks per ad, you'll know which one is the winner. Replace the loser and keep comparing.
4. If you're serious about learning how to use Google Adwords, sign up for my friend and mentor and colleague Perry Marshall's free 5-part email mini-course: www.perrymarshall.com/google. 1. 2239 Tested Secrets for Dir.ect Marketing Success by Denny Hatch. Excellent primer on direct response marketing, with a special emphasis
of the results of other people's marketing tests. Life isn't long
enough to make all the mistakes yourself - buy this book and learn from
other people's. The essence of the Leads into Gold system is testing - trying things and seeing how they work. If Marketing Motivators 1 and 2 sound promising, but you're unsure of the mechanics, Leads into Gold is for you. It takes you through each of these steps in complete detail, systematically. You'll learn how to track and measure response, so you can continually market like a moth, moving always in the direction of greater interest, response, and profit. There's an entire section on Metrics, which teaches you how to calculate true Return on Investment of various marketing efforts. 3. Put talking testimonials on your website: www.howieconnect.com/talkingwebsite.htm If you've visited http://www.leadsintogold.com in the last month, you've seen a very cool new audio component. It's a service that makes it simple, quick, and cheap to get people to give you glowing testimonials at the moment you've deserved them. Picture this: you've just helped a customer or client, and they're really grateful. You hand them your cell phone and say, "Would you mind repeating what you just said so I can use it on my website? It's so much more powerful when you say something nice about me than when I say it about myself." They wait for the beep, record the message, and eight seconds later it's ready for you or your webmaster to insert on your site. Hey, try it! If you like the Motivated Marketing Letter, I'd appreciate a testimonial that will brag about it for me. Email me by replying to this edition and I'll send you a toll-free phone number to call. You'll see how cool and easy it is, and I'll have a testimonial. Sound fair? 4. I'm testing something brand new - video email. I haven't even received my kit from the company yet - webcam, mousepad, hairgel, whatever - so I can't recommend it. If you're interested, check out www.howieconnect.com/video-email.htm. The Motivated Marketing Letter Details The Motivated Marketing Letter is published whenever I feel like it (these days it seems to be coming out twice a month), and is a copyrighted feature of howieconnect. For down-to-earth, ethical, and easy-to-follow marketing guidance, visit www.howieconnect.com. I work with businesses and solo practitioners who are great at what they do, and not so great at telling the world about it. What would you like to read about in future issues of the Motivated Marketing Letter? Email me topics and questions, and save me the trouble of guessing. To unsubscribe with no hard feelings, click on the link at the bottom of this email. If you would like to subscribe to the Motivated Marketing Letter, fill out the form on my home page, www.howieconnect.com. You'll get my seven-part lead generation course, and then about two letters a month. I build my business through referral - I'd be grateful if you would forward this email to any associates who would be glad to receive it. Thanks.
When choosing between two evils, I always like
to try the one I've never tried before.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable
that we have to alter it every six months.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all
evidence that you tried.
User: The word that computer professionals use
when they mean "idiot."
My wife thinks I'm too nosy. At least that's
what she scribbles in her diary.
How can you tell when a moth farts? It flies in
a straight line.* *I know it's not very professional, but I couldn't resist.
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Until next time, all the best, |
The Leads into Gold™ System. A marketing course, toolkit, swipe file and audio crash course & "personal trainer" to help you attract more business than you can handle with no cold calling. Learn how to generate qualified leads who want what you sell. Get them to call you. Listen to a happy customer who almost didn't buy for a very good reason! Click here to buy Leads into Gold before the price goes up. I'll "bribe" you to tell a friend about howieconnect with a special report, "How to Achieve Massive Superiority in Your Market" "Testimonial
Farming" Teleseminar soon available on CD:
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