31 Mar
2010
Calling it a trap does not sound so nice. But hang in there. Using the trap analogy will help me explain the following marketing idea.
I met with a great tourist guide, operator and booking agent and business man. This guy has great products and amazing routes. He has contacts in the industry. He has a nice looking website. He gets paid premium rates because he is well known in the industry. But business is tough.
He showed me two articles, in globally distributed magazines focusing on tours. The target market was spot on. These articles shared his story and had spectacular images, but he got one booking from it. One measly booking. Why? We are working on the solution but let me share with you an idea.
Let's assume the story makes the grade, the target market is spot on, the website looks great.... what is the problem?
In order for a trap to be effective you need to:
- Decide where your target market exist. (Position of the trap).
- Decided who you target market is. (An elephant trap will be different to a bird trap)
- Know what they want. (The bait).
- Create bait for those ready to eat (Those who will buy your product or service today)
- Create bait for those who only want information. (These are the ones who are planning to use your service or products but are not ready yet).
- Keep those you trapped, fed with regular samples of what you do and how it can resolve their issues. (In my short marketing ebook I call these trapped-areas cultivation pools. Basically you create places like your blog/newsletter, facebook, youtube and twitter as cultivation pools. These are places where you cultivate relationships until people in your pool spend money with you. And then you send them back to the cultivation pool again. Now you have a place where you can ask and test.
- Many business people want to make the big catch, that they never catch and if they do they have no clue what to do with it. You have seen those dogs chasing the-big-bus. They do a lot but they achieve nothing and when they catch the bus they are so tiered they can do nothing with it.
Let's get back to this excellent guide. When you read compare this guys appraoch to your own. I bet you that most of you are doing more or less what he does:
- With the articles, in the fancy magazines, he focused --- correctly --- on where to positions his trap and who he wants to trap [(1) and (2)].
- His focus is on catching hungry people. In other words his marketing systems are designed to cater for people who want to book a trip today. He focus on hungry people.
- Looking at his website he does not cater for people who wants confirmation, for people who wants to know if his the expert, for people who wants to know what other people are saying about him, for people who wants social proof, for people who wants more info. In other words he spent a lot of energy bring people to his website....his business. But they left him forever. Because at any one time very few people are hungry in comparison to the people who are searching for info. This must stop!
- This website does a dedicated pool where people can get involved in a discussion.... with the expert and other searchers. This website does not have a tool for visitors to easily stay in touch with new developments. In other words this website does not provide small portions of bait on a regular basis to keep the searchers interested. This website, like most I encounter do not have an integrated system or integrated cultivation pools.
As I have said: This is an example of most website I investigate.
Read more and see this i
mage explaining cultivation pools.
Johan Horak