The Marketing Equation: Step 1

Interrupt a Qualified Prospect's Trance and Sustain Interest

The first thing your marketing has to do is get the prospect's attention. This requires you to lliterally grab them, and shake them awake!  How? Well there are three main message categories that your brain is always on the look-out for:

• Things Familiar
• Things Unusual
• Things Problematic

The part of your brain which is always alert and scanning your sensory horizon for these messages is called the reticular activator.

Click on image to view the Marketing Equation Step 1 Video

The Reticular Activator and Brain Waves

Alpha Mode

When you are performing rote tasks your brain is literally asleep, the medical community has identified this mode of brain awareness as alpha mode.  Think of driving your car to work on a sunny summer day, drinking a cup of coffee, talking on your cell phone and putting on make-up (or shaving) of alpha mode! You arrive at work, park your car and realize that you were pretty got there on auto-pilot... that's alpha mode.

Contrast this with driving to work during a terrible snow or rain storm.  You've already felt the car slip once or twice (something unusual) and suddenly you are wide-awake and fully present in the task of driving to work... you are now in beta mode.

Beta Mode

Beta mode is characterized by heightened awareness and focus. So grabbing your prospect's attention and pulling your prospect into beta mode is the first step in effective marketing.

Marketing Message Categories

• Things Familiar - animals, celebraties, catchy jingles
• Things Unusual - gecko's, cave men, stock trading baby
• Things Problematic - peeling paint, flooding basement, falling profits

At this point you probably can tell that most of the marketing messages you see coming across your television from Madison Avenue fall into the first two categories. And frankly, since the products they are pitching have mass appeal and are easy to purchase their Creative and Impressions (C-n-I) approach does a pretty good job of of grabbing your attention for the first few impressions and imbedding their message in your mind.

False Beta's and the Need for Relevance and Importance

The challenge with marketing a specialty business like yours is that once the brain is snapped into beta mode the brain instantly checks the source of the activation against these questions:

• Is this relevant?
• Is this important?
• Will paying attention to this benefit me?

If your marketing fails to immediately answer these questions for the prospect (which by the way also immediately qualifies or disqualifies the prospect) your prospect experiences a "false beta" and the reticular activator immediately returns to alpa mode.

When marketing a specialty business it is not sufficient to catch the prospect's attention with a catchy slogan, unusual image or picture of a cute animal! Your marketing must immediately answer the questions of relevance, importance and personal benefit. 

 MarketingProfits4.0 Success Principle

Focusing on things problematic, sometimes referred to as "hot buttons" or "pain points" is the key to successfully marketing you specialty business.