Cultural Shifts Bring Enlightenment

Posted on February 4, 2013 by JeffKontur

Photo credit: Sara Goldsmith

I am currently working with someone from another part of the world on a test venture. Although putting together the test venture was relatively easy, that was due largely to our having a pre-existing relationship.

More problematic was my partner’s understanding of the venture itself.

We grew up in different cultures. Worse, our cultures were, in many ways, exact opposites of one another.

I am American, where we truly have an embarrassment of riches. In America, we have so much wealth that it actually takes conscious effort to recognize it all.

Water and electricity are pumped into our homes without interruption. Smooth, well maintained roads allow us to move freely about. We have so much food that it sometimes spoils and gets thrown away before we get around to eating it. TV, radio, phone service, free libraries, schools, police and fire protection, curbside trash pickup… The list just just goes on and on.

We have hundreds of channels on TV and dozens of restaurant choices within a few miles of practically every home in America. We have abundance coming out our ears.

As a consequence, what do Americans value? Scarcity. Anything which is rare has value. Anything one-of-a-kind has tremendous value. Things that are antique and for which more can’t be produced — reproductions are not the same thing — have value.

Contrast that with my partner, who grew up in a third world country where everything is scarce. Electricity gets turned off on a regular schedule because the grid can’t support continuous delivery. Food and water are not things to be taken for granted. There are few cars because so few can afford them.

In that world, the very concept that scarcity has value is something completely alien.

It took some lengthy discussions but once we each understood the context of one another’s way of thinking, it was a smooth partnership.

The same applies to your relationship with your customers. While the differences in background and thinking may be less extreme, it’s no less important that you take the time to understand your customers and properly explain yourself to them.

I Don’t Need to Outrun the Bear…

Posted on January 21, 2013 by JeffKontur

There is an old joke whose punchline goes “I don’t need to outrun the bear, I only need to outrun you!”

Photo credit: Darren Blackburn

Along similar lines, there is a humorous expression, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Both of these expressions have been on my mind lately as, to me, they both represent sort of the same thing. That is, the concept that I don’t need to be the best who ever lived at what I do. I don’t even need to be the best who is currently alive. Heck, I don’t even have to be the best I know.

Being best is nice and it’s absolutely a goal I strive toward, but all that’s really necessary in order to be successful is to be my best. If I am competent at what I do and if I always give my best and am always finding way to improve, then I’m already a winner.

Someone looking to work with a copywriter probably isn’t looking to work with the best there is. For a lot of reasons. Perhaps they can’t afford the best. Or can’t wait months for that person’s schedule to free up. Or maybe they don’t even know who the best is and have no real way of finding out.

As long as I am able to do a good job and increase sales, then I am delivering value. As long as that value is far greater than what I charge for it, then I’m giving my clients a good deal.

By the way, this same principle holds true for any profession. I don’t need the greatest dentist who ever lived, I just want someone to fix my tooth. I don’t need the engine whisperer, I just want someone who can fix my car and get it running.

It’s liberating to realize this!

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I Don’t Need to Outrun the Bear…

How “I don’t need to outrun the bear, I only need to outrun you!” applies to marketing.

I don’t need to be the best who ever lived at…

All that’s really necessary in order to be successful is to be MY best.

As long as I deliver value that is far greater than what I charge for it…

I don’t need the engine whisperer, I just want someone who can fix my car.

Stumbling Into Profitability

Posted on January 14, 2013 by JeffKontur

Just stumbling along.

I don’t think anyone would argue it’s the best route to success in anything.

Still, it seems to be the path most of us follow whether we plan to or not. In fact, it’s the planners among us — myself included — who are typically most guilty of following a stumbling, meandering path.

I don’t profess to know a solution. If I did, this would be a very different article. I don’t even know that a solution is necessary. Sometimes we discover fantastic things when we wander.

The number of wonderful surprises I’ve come across in my own personal wanderings is far too numerous to count. By way of offering a sample, let me share just a couple…

Just Because an Idea is Good, Doesn’t Mean it’s Viable

I once had an idea for a line of manufactured products. It was a good idea; dare I say, even a great idea. I spent quite a long time working on it. I researched source materials, thought up marketing ideas, built and tested prototypes, calculated cost and pricing, did market analyses…

All went very well. Everything was about as in line as a new venture could expect to get.

Except for one thing.

It was a manufactured product.

Mass producing it would require machinery and equipment. Even used, the equipment needed was prohibitively expensive.

There are No Gods at the Altar of Originality

For most of my life I have worshiped at the altar of originality. That is to say, I prided myself on being a unique and original flower in a sea of common, three-leaf clovers. My love of originality even extended to my entrepreneurial pursuits.

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial bent, but my love of originality meant that whatever I did must be new and unique. No merely running a gas station or buying into a franchise for me. No using someone else’s business model that’s already been perfected and proven to work.

Such thinking was sorely to my own detriment.

Many years passed where I struggled to lift my ambitions to great heights while watching so many others cruise easily past me on their own routes to success. So much time wasted. So much effort squandered.

I still love originality but now realize it can hold a place in my life without being my whole life.

Now I sell stuff on eBay, I am one of thousands of copywriters, one of hundreds of thousands of teachers and one of millions of authors. When I let go of my need to be original was when I finally started seeing some measurable success.

When Making a Profit can be Deadly to your Business

Posted on December 10, 2012 by JeffKontur

In your marketing, is it necessary to always make a profit? Or to at least have profitability as your goal?

We’re not talking about charities and organizations whose goal is not to make a profit. We’re also not talking about “awareness” campaigns or ones in which your goal is to get people to sign up for a mailing list or something like that. (Some of these things have questionable value to begin with for most small businesses.)

So in cases where you are advertising and your goal is for the ad to generate sales, is it always important to make a profit?

The answer is a big fat NO.

In fact, there are some cases where making a profit from an ad can be deadly to your business.

It all comes down to knowing your average customer.

So this is a strategy that will work only for established businesses. New businesses need sales before they die in infancy.

With an established business that already has some customer base and a sales history, it pays to analyze that sales history.

If you know that, say 12% of your first-time customers stick around to become long-term repeat customers and your typical long-term customer stays with you for three years and spends an average of $3,000 over that time, then you logically want to get as many such customers as possible. It isn’t necessary to make a profit on the very first sale because you will stand to profit on each subsequent sale over the next three years.

Do you want to lose money?

Ironically, there actually are times when it makes sense to lose a bit to attract a customer. Grocery stores do this all the time. Say they advertise coffee for some ridiculously cheap price. They might even be losing a few cents on each can of coffee they sell.

Sure, a few customers will come in, buy the cheap coffee and leave. But most will come in for the cheap coffee and end up doing their whole week’s shopping while they’re there. A few may even go on to become regular customers, having been lured away from a competitor.

Most of the time, however, smart marketers want to price their initial offer so that they just break even. The money brought in from sales should be just enough to pay for the cost of goods plus the cost of marketing.

It’s an educated guessing game but if you can do it, you introduce yourself to a lot of potential new customers at zero cost to you. Some of them will go on to become long-term customers. Now you’ve just made a bundle in long-term profits at no up-front cost.

And all those people who take you up on your introductory offer but then never come back?

Well if you’ve done it right, those people cost you nothing. You made no profit but also lost no money on the deal. You also learned a lot about what will generate response and sales. It’s a win all around.

Knowing and understanding this kind of stuff is where a marketing strategist comes in handy.

Click any of the icons below to retweet these passages from the above article.

Remember, we’ll donate money to charity for every retweet. No purchase necessary. You retweet, we donate. It’s that simple.

There are some cases where making a profit from an ad can be deadly to your business.

Ironically, there actually are times when it makes sense to lose money in business.

Make a bundle in long-term profits at no up-front cost.

Knowing and understanding this kind of stuff is where a marketing strategist comes in handy.

Split Testing

Posted on December 3, 2012 by JeffKontur

Split testing, also sometimes known as A/B testing, is one of the cornerstones of effective marketing.

In it, you test two ideas against each other. It could be two different ads, two versions of a web page, you name it. Measure customer response to determine which is better at achieving your goals, whether they be more signups, more inquiries, more sales, longer time on your website or whatever.

Keep the better version, throw out the “loser” and then try a new idea against the winner.

You may have a winner which stands for many years and beats all challengers or you may have a new winner every week. Either way, you will know with certainty that the ad you are using is the best you can come up with.

Of course I’m glossing over a great deal of hard work and fine detail. There’s formulating a marketing goal, knowing what to track and how to track it, how long do you run the test, how do you allocate the “load” and so on.

Let’s look at that last one a bit.

Say you already have an established winner (called a “control” among professional marketers) that has proven itself over time. Now you have a new challenger which presents a completely new idea and you want to see how well it resonates with your customers compared to your control.

You wouldn’t want to risk 50% of your customers on a gamble but you do want to test the challenger on a large enough sample to make it statistically valid. Depending on the size of your customer base, it’s normal to show the challenger piece to between 5% and 20% of your customers while the rest continue to get the control version.

Split testing requires an incredible amount of meticulous tracking and record keeping. It really takes a full-time, dedicated person to do it right and most big marketers have entire staffs fully dedicated to split testing. That’s a huge commitment but the payoff is more effective marketing and more sales.