Expand With Connection MarketingWhat you can do now to thrive in the new economy…If this has caught your attention it’s because we’re discussing Connection Marketing.What is Connection Marketing?In this article, I’ll go into an overview of what Connection Marketing is, and what you can do NOW to thrive in these new economic times.Connection Marketing: What is it?Marketing:My definition of ‘marketing’ is the communication between a business and a consumer. A ‘consumer’ is a potential customer; also know as a prospect. Any type of communication between the business and the consumer – whether it be through a video, through an ad, through a brochure – is what I consider ‘marketing’.Connection:’Connection’ means that the exchanges that take place, between business and consumer, do so in a friendly and humane manner. The interaction is from one person to another; NOT from a corporation trying to jam something down your throat.A quick back storyThe industrial economy brought us the television. The T.V. allowed us to market our products and services to the masses. In order to reach the general population, companies needed to create average products and services.This is in the traditional marketing sense. It’s the traditional way of doing things.Back then, we used to buy things that we NEEDED. As long as a company created a product that filled a NEED, they’d be able to advertise it – traditionally – and make money. But what happened is they started making bland and regular products so they could sell as many as possible to the masses.The internet has changed everything. It has made it possible to reach the most unique groups of people. The mass market has been dissolved – we no longer buy what we NEED, we buy what we WANT. And that means that businesses can now thrive by creating unique products, to unique segments of the population. This is where connection marketing comes in.Since people buy what they WANT (they already have everything they NEED), we should ask ourselves what that is. We don’t need to create something super bland and uniform, and we don’t have to worry about selling a bazillion units to average people. All of a sudden you can make niche products; very unique products, to niche crowds.Quick Recap:For the past 100 years here’s how I’ve seen the promotion of a product or service – the ‘marketing’. For the past 100 years, it’s been:Annoying: You ever watch a T.V. show, and every commercial timeout you see runs the same ad? Whether it be for Pizza Pops or Cadillac cars, they are very annoying and repetitive.Repetitive: They hope it burns into your brain, so that when you see it, you feel compelled to purchase it.Interruptive: When you’re looking for information you visit a blog. Within the first second you’re bombarded by pop-ups, asking for your e-mail address so they can send you something great. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for that, but give me a chance to read the headline!Exaggerative: The best example I can use for this is when you go to a fast food restaurant. How good does that burger look when it’s up on the billboard, or on posters? Of course when you get it, it looks NOTHING like advertised…Here’s how I see the next 100 years of promotion for a product or service – or the next 100 years of ‘marketing’:Relevant: Because we’re selling unique products to unique people, all of a sudden we don’t have to advertise our stuff absolutely everywhere. Only those people who have shown an interest or may have looked at something like this in the past, will see our ads or marketing, therefore making it relevant to them.Subtle: Imagine if you’re someone who loves books, but everywhere you look you see ads for sneakers… That not very subtle, and you’d notice that right away since it’s not very appealing to you.Anticipated: This is especially true when it comes to e-mail correspondence. Most companies now collect e-mails (which is understandable). The problem is that you get the same 6 e-mails a day, containing promotion notices, sales, and early-bird specials whether you want them or not. Because these messages are not anticipated, it is the MAJOR factor that makes a person decide to ‘opt-out’. In the future, these anticipated messages (also being relevant) will see much better open rates. Also, a person only gets the information they agree to receive.Honest: This may sound trivial, but a very important example is pricing an item at 49.99$. “Who are you kidding?” “Call it like it is!” You’ll never see two people at a party with the following exchange: “Nice shoes… how much did you pay?” “I paid 49.99$” Your marketing message should be from one person to another.The good news is that it’s all looking up from here! Taking a look at the past 100 years and the next 100 years, you can see that it’s looking good.The world is a different place… People want to connect.That means:NO MORE bureaucracyNO MORE ridiculous policiesNO MORE exploitation from greedy corporationsDecisions based on ROI are the ways of old – No more greedy fat-cats, wearing suits, drinking scotch and smoking big cigars making decisions based on how much money they can squeeze from people.Connection Marketing encourages better values; such as honesty and integrity.We don’t have to engineer bland products to serve average people, nor should we cater to a general public anymore.We can be TRANSPARENT. We can be OURSELVES.I truly believe that we can be successful when we follow this etiquette.Transitioning to Connection MarketingYou’re probably wondering: “How can I make the transition to connection marketing?… Will it work?”Well, most aspects of connection marketing are very similar to those of traditional marketing…You still have things like an online store or website, you still use landing pages to collect e-mails, you still offer products and services, and of course, you’re still making a profit!You’re still in business; you still provide value for people and for that you get paid handsomely.It’s the METHOD by which you carry yourself that’s different.It’s the look, the feel, the layout of the online store… It’s the look, the feel, the offer of the landing page… It’s what you do with those e-mails… It’s the product or the service that you’re offering that’s different.The 3 Pillars to Connection MarketingCABBIT – An aspect of your offering is remarkable and worth talking about.If you were driving down a country road and saw a cow in the field, you probably wouldn’t look twice. But imagine it was a PURPLE cow! (referencing Seth Godin’s incredible book titled Purple Cow)You’d most likely stop, take pictures, upload them to social media, and call your friends and family to explain what you saw. That’s because a purple cow is remarkable and worth talking about. Whether your product already has a Cabbit, or whether it needs one, it’s something you want to lead-off with. What truly separates you from your competition?CONNECTION – Opening the channel of communication with your prospects – creating a two-way dialogue.This pertains to the e-mail sequences mostly. Rather than bombarding people with unrelated, unanticipated messages, you’re creating an open dialogue with consumers. Imagine that you want to upgrade, update, or create a new product. Now imagine being able to ask your fans what they like/dislike about the current version. No more guesswork! Plus, a person might be more inclined to purchase your new product knowing they had a say in its creation. Powerful, and not to be taken advantage of… It’s free research!CONTRIBUTION – With our newfound success, we’re able to support worthwhile causes.I believe we all have a need to contribute – amongst others. We all want to help others. We want to do great things together. What if you build contribution into your ticket price? What if you took a portion of profits from every sale and donated it to a certain charity. Some people would like to do business with you merely because they’d be helping others. You’re not JUST doing it as a clever ploy to sell more stuff, but you WANT to do it because you’re helping others – and it’s good KARMA.I realize just may still have a few questions…How do I know this really works?Let me ask you this:Are you tired of the way you’re being marketed to by other companies?Are you tired of receiving irrelevant and unanticipated e-mails from companies?Are you tired of being misled by fine-print and exaggerated claims?These are traditional methods of marketing.If you’re fed up, chances are that lots of others are too.How do I know if this is a good investment?The fact of the matter is that traditional marketing methods are working less and less – companies find themselves spending more advertising money than ever, to have the same effect they may have had in the past.On a daily basis, we’re bombarded by 3000-7000 ads. We’ve grown so accustomed to them, we tune them out. Large corporations then resort to ‘ramping it up’. “We’ll just be louder than ever!” (Just look at how we now get ads in our inbox).I believe it’s possible to reach MORE, while spending LESS. The key is Connection Marketing.What I’m suggesting is that we stop marketing to EVERYONE though repetitive, average marketing and we instead start CONNECTING to unique markets – offering truly remarkable options.I’m sure there are many companies headed in this direction…Let’s start utilizing this approach as a means of promoting ‘the human connection agenda’.
Automotive Advertising Agencies Focus on Consumers Vs Auto Dealers to Sell Cars Because Google Does
Consumers prefer to go to the Internet to shop for a vehicle to get information to make a buying decision without having to visit a dealership. Sometimes they turn to the World Wide Web vs. their local car row to avoid being pressured by a self serving car salesperson — real or imagined. Other times their objective may be to save gas and time before they jump into the real world where they may be pressured into making a premature buying decision based on emotion and limited information. Frankly, in many cases, they are right; can you say — spot delivery.Job one for search engines, like Google, is to provide relevant information to their online customers to help them narrow down their list of vehicles of interest and answer associated questions like trade-in value, payment options and the many items that must be addressed before they can select — the — vehicle vs. — a — vehicle. Once those issues are resolved, they need to help their online shoppers find an auto dealer that can provide a vehicle that best satisfies those terms and conditions; in that order — vehicle first and dealer second. My point is that when Google first directs their customers to the most relevant source for their desired information it is not necessarily limited to a particular dealership. Today’s car shoppers are much better educated than yesterday’s. They know what questions they need to ask before they can make a buying decision so their online search words are more able to target vehicles that warrant their consideration rather than limiting their search to their local car dealerships. For better or worse, auto dealers can’t put that horse back in the barn!The adversarial relationship between consumers and auto dealers that governed old world selling processes originated in the real world to help auto dealers control the shopping and negotiation process and they survived briefly on the virtual showrooms being built one on the Internet, but — today and tomorrow — not so much! Once auto dealer’s realized — or more correctly — once customers told auto dealers that they no longer controlled the access to the information that they needed to purchase a vehicle the dealers tried to control the information on the Internet; how is that working out for auto dealers!Automotive advertising agencies first assumed that S.E.O. and S.E.M. was a way to put Google on the auto dealer’s side of the Internet Super Highway. If they placed the right search words, meta tags, URL names — and the various manipulations of the Google search algorithms that automotive advertising agencies have memorized as fast as Google changes them — then they could manipulate the search results to place their auto dealer clients as the most relevant source for the information that customers were searching for and earn the auto dealers a position on the car shoppers short list. Given the vertical priority placed by Google to position a listing on page one based on relevancy to their customers search words or phrases, that technique certainly has value. However, since customers are prioritizing finding a vehicle before a dealer and/or to answer related questions before they open negotiations on a specific vehicle at a particular auto dealer, auto dealers that base their online marketing efforts to accomplish that priority are positioning themselves mid-sales cycle and they may be a day late and a dollar short for a large portion of today’s and tomorrow’s shoppers/buyers.Automotive advertising agencies have attempted to answer customer’s questions on their auto dealership’ websites in an attempt to earn them a top position on vehicle based searches. Their assumption is that the more information the better — as long as it is relevant — however, once at the auto dealer’s site the more accurate priority is “transparency!” More time on page, and more page visits used to be considered a good thing but today, once again — not so much! The easier and faster the online car shopper can find the specific information that they need to make a buying decision the better! Site designs are being simplified with more intuitive user interface and dedicated landing pages or linked micro sites to allow customers to limit the amount of “clicks” or wasted exposure to information that may be relevant to the dealer but not necessarily to the customer; at that time in their shopping cycle at least.Once the shopper actually ventures onto an online showroom the plan is to keep them there by providing direct or linked access to anything that they need to move themselves further down the sales/buying funnel. The dealer may see these information resources as a conversion tool or a lead generator but if they lose track of the truth — that the customer is still in charge — they risk losing them with the click of a mouse. Sorry, but throwing their trade-in keys onto the roof won’t work in your virtual showrooms!The solution is for auto dealers to listen and learn from their online customers before they presume to sell them anything! Human nature has survived on the World Wide Web and relationship based selling still has a strong influence on consumers. Today’s online shoppers are being directed by Google and the other search engines to social networking sites because the marketplace is a conversation and people are social animals. Auto dealers who want to attract customers with a message that they are the best source for information to serve the customer’s interest vs. their own are better served to have their customers make that case for them.Next generation inventory based search portals — like ronsmap.com — accept an auto dealer’s inventory for free with the ability to push their vehicles into social media using their vBack application to Ask-A-Friend or Tell-A-Friend about the vehicle — and the dealer –that they are considering within their social networking communities of online friends. Google has already admitted that they are prioritizing real time social media to establish relevancy, and automotive advertising agencies already know that more vehicles on a site provide more relevancy to more online car shoppers. As a result, they have found that the way to attract more online customers to find their auto dealership as the place to go to get all of their questions answered will be the message that is carried along with their individual vehicles listed on this communal consumer-centric site; which is what the customers are looking for to begin developing their shortlist of dealers to do business with!Customer friendly applications that distribute the information on an auto dealer’s individual website which have the secondary value of functioning as a conversion tool or lead generator are also key differentiators that quickly build branding value for an auto dealer’s virtual showroom and enhance their online reputation as the place to go to get customer’s questions answered vs. their being sold something. For example, GetAutoAppraise.Com is a next generation appraisal tool that provides credible third party trade-in values sourced through NADA with integrated inventory information that allows the customer to review the entire transaction more efficiently. Their trade-in appraisal form includes vehicle, price and payment information to and from both parties to the transaction in one easy transparent and customer friendly process.Video platforms, like SiSTeR Technologies Video CarLot, is another transparent Google friendly application that converts pictures on an auto dealer’s website into interactive videos with human voice that are also pushed out onto the World Wide Web through their dedicated API to You Tube and soon to be announced applications that push their vShock platform onto social networking communities like Face Book. Their proprietary video platform is fully index able for the search engines and it provides relevant information to the customer from within the video as well as direct links through their vShock application that opens a dedicated micro site with similar vehicles chosen from the dealer’s inventory using algorithms and business rules custom designed by the dealer to improve the customers vehicle selection. This process is another example of a customer friendly information delivery system that will improve transparency for the customer once they find an online dealership which will also extend the auto dealers S.E.O..The point is, the more information that an automotive advertising agency provides through their auto dealer client’s websites in the most relevant and transparent manner the better. However, auto dealers need to get online car shoppers to find and visit their virtual showrooms first, and since information is a key differentiator between them and their online competition — or according to Google and online shoppers, it should be – then the information alone won’t make it! Automotive advertising agencies must focus on consumers’ interests in order to best serve their auto dealer clients because Google does; and Google does it because their customers demand it!