Kethyr's CAMEL Report
Palo Alto, California
Monday, October 1, 2007

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Today, I'd like to talk about the basics of direct marketing. Why? Because of all the business skills, I consider marketing the most important, and direct marketing the best means of marketing. If you can master the fundamentals of direct marketing, you will know how to sell anything. And if you can sell anything, you can do anything.

Direct response marketing means that you attempt to persuade your prospect to respond directly - in some specific way - to your marketing effort.

Typically, direct response marketing includes direct mail, direct advertising, Internet marketing, free standing inserts, direct radio, direct television, and so on. Direct response marketing differs dramatically from conventional advertising in that conventional advertising is primarily concerned with promoting awareness of and interest in a product or service. It does not attempt to stimulate a direct response.

It takes a lot of talent to get someone to respond directly to your sales proposition. Since you don't have the advantage of personal contact, you must employ numerous psychological techniques to substitute for the intimacy and personal power you could create in a one-on-one selling situation.

These psychological principles are the foundation of all selling, but they are easiest to understand (and most necessary to employ) when you are separated from your prospect by a computer monitor, television, radio or the US Postal Service. And that's why I favor direct response marketing. If you master it, you have the basis for mastering all other forms of marketing.

The Skills You Need To Be A Master Direct Marketer:

1. A good understanding of why and how people buy things.
2. The ability to make a big, tempting promise.
3. The skill to show that promise as a picture, to advance it with propositions and to support those propositions with proof.
4. The ability to distinguish between features and benefits.

We are going to go through each of these quickly. Please don't worry if you don't quite get them all. More information is available on the Kethyr Solutions Website (http://www.kethyr.com) and by subscribing to this monthly e-newsletter (http://www.kethyr.com/CAMEL/subscribe.html). All of these issues are important enough to revisit again and again.

Why People Buy Things - A Marketer's Perspective

Let me put it as a fact: We buy most things not because we need them but because we want them.

Sure you buy food because you need to eat. But if you buy anything other than generic foodstuffs, you are paying extra money to satisfy your wants. Housing? Yes, you need shelter. But you don't need that Mediterranean duplex you've had your eye on. Clothing? Loin cloths went out years ago. The secret to selling is to create in your prospect a desire to buy that is so strong that it feels like a need.

Here's how:

1. To make a sale, i.e. turn a prospect or lead into a new client, you need to make a promise. And that promise has to relate to something your prospect wants.
   
   If you owned a butcher shop, it wouldn't do much good to put a sign on your window that said, "Dead Cow Meat for Sale." If you are even marginally aware of the psychology of selling, you'd probably do something more like, "Prime USDA Choice Steak Now On Sale."
   
   You've got to make a promise. And the promise should be big enough and strong enough to attract a lukewarm prospect. Remember, success happens at the margins. It is easy to sell those who are predisposed to buy what you're selling. It is impossible to sell those who are steadfast against it. The difference between mediocrity and success lies in between - in marketing to those who are neither pre-sold nor dead set against… the people in the margin.
    
2. To make your promise vivid, transform it into a picture.
   
   If, for example, you were selling chocolate cake, you might want to show your prospect a picture of the cake itself, with a slice overturned and a nice tall glass of milk or cup of coffee on the side. If you're selling something more complicated than cake, you'll need to create a subtler, more sophisticated picture.
    
3. To advance your selling effort, you need to make certain propositions or claims.
   
   If cake were the product, you might claim that it is light and sweet or thick and creamy.
    
4. You would then need to support such claims with proof.
   
   Perhaps your cake is made with only natural ingredients, it won the Betty Crocker award for delectability, etc.

People Buy Things for Emotional Reasons. To Sell Things, You Need To Stimulate Those Emotions.

To stimulate your prospect's feelings, present not the features of the product/service, but its benefits. Tell your prospect how the product/service will help him. Show him how that will happen.

For example, the features of a particular sports car might include power steering, an oversized engine and an advanced breaking system. The benefits would be the ability to take a tight corner, to hit sixty-miles-an-hour in five seconds and to stop on a dime. By focusing on what's in it for the prospective driver - and not what's in the car itself - you can evoke the deeper feelings (I want to be seen as powerful, sexy, etc.) needed to make the sale.

As I said in the beginning, this is a very brief introduction to a very important area of knowledge. Whether negotiating with a boss over your job, your partner about the plans for your next vacation, or trying to build your business into the success you've always imagined it can be - no matter what you do in life - you will need to be able to sell. Direct marketing skills are some of the best.

Until next month,

Sean E. Armstrong
Kethyr's CAMEL Report

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