I’ve been studying Internet Marketing for a long while, and it seems to me that there are two ways to study the topic.
One is to be a wise consumer of educational materials to teach you all the things you don’t yet know. And if you’re a good student, you’ll soon discover the second way.
And that’s just to observe everything that goes on around you, because there are marketing lessons and opportunities everywhere.
I went on a cruise down the coast of Mexico earlier this year. It was a wonderful trip. I was hardly thinking about business or marketing when Iwent with my family to the Golden Zone in Mazatlan. That’s where all the taxi drivers take the tourists when they go ashore, and that’s where the best shopping is supposed to be.
So, when a dozen of us squirted out of the Van we were in, right before us was the wide open front door of a Jewelry store.
There was a beautiful woman standing outside, dressed in a fine dress, heels and jewels. And she said to us all “Would you like to come in from the heat and have a drink of water?”
And it was at that time I realized the marketing lesson that was being demonstrated there.
Actually, there were two of them.
The first, and most obvious was that they were getting an opt-in from us. She wasn’t asking us if we wanted to buy diamonds. She just wanted to know if we wanted a drink.
We all filed in and cooled off.
Do you know what the second marketing lesson was?
It was that she spoke these words “Would you like to come in from the heat and have a drink of water?” in ENGLISH.
I was in the Mexico, and she was speaking English.
And that was an example of “Starting where your customer already is,” another valuable lesson I’ll explain more in a later post.
But my point now is that marketing lessons, and marketing opportunities are everywhere. Even at home.
I have three kids, and a day doesn’t go by when two or more of them want to play with the same toy, or compete in some other way. My wife and I used to try to work out the conflict. . . until we discovered a better way.
And that better way is to market to one or more of the children that there’s something better in the next room. “Hey Max, I have something special for you in the next room, but. . . no, you don’t want to see it, do you?”
That always results in an overwhelming Yes answer.
It isn’t deception, but it is an effort to get someone else — in this case my child — to come around to my way of thinking, and to appreciate and desire the value of what I have to offer.
And that’s what marketing is, isn’t it?
My marketing expertise grows daily with simple observations and practices like this, and I hope yours will to.
Because everything is marketing.
To Your Success,
–Mark Widawer