Product marketing can be quite tricky. Do you want to sell somebody something? Do you want some big shot or a celebrity to speak on your behalf? Do you want an incredible board without paying them? There’s a way to do all of this and it’s called “give them what they’re chasing.” Ken breaks this down as he gives two examples that show how doing your homework and giving people what they want can do the job. As you grow your product, leverage on people with following and credibility to get more people to your business.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Bring It To Them
This is episode 197. Do you want to sell something to someone? How bad do you want to sell them something? Can you do some whale hunting? Are there some really large clients that you would give your pinky toe to sell? Do you want some big shot or even maybe a celebrity to speak on your behalf or maybe even endorse your product for free? How about number three? Do you want to bring on the ultimate board of directors? How cool would it be to have an incredible advisory board without having to pay them a nickel? Watch this because the same thing can accomplish all three. Do you want to sell somebody something? Do you want some big shot or a celebrity to speak on your behalf? Do you want an incredible board without paying them? There’s a way to do all of this and it’s called give them what they’re chasing.
I’m going to give you two examples. Years ago, somebody in our marketing department told me that the only way we’re going to grow this website is to get a couple of .gov links. In the world of the web, if you want to raise the credibility of a website, you show Google that the government is listing you as a reference or is trusting you. You can use one .gov link or the equivalent of three .edu links and get maybe Notre Dame and a couple other major universities to brag about you a little bit. I was challenged in a marketing meeting by an employee that said, “Mr. Courtright, the only way you’re going to grow this website is to get a couple links from the government.” It was impossible. Then we asked around the room and it turned out that in the six years that this marketing team had been internet marketing, nobody had successfully got a link from a .gov. We’ve tried seven times and we are seven for seven. Every single time we’ve tried to get a link from a .gov website, the accomplishment, how did we do this? What you do when you want to get a link from the government is you give them what they’re chasing.
If you want to raise the credibility of a website, you show Google that the government is listing you as a reference or is trusting you. Click To TweetHere’s what happened. We had a website that involved moving furniture across state lines. What people do when they need to move, say from Tennessee to Florida, is they need to find a credible, insured and bonded mover that they can trust. They go on a lot of these websites including the government’s website. Their local state website is Tennessee.gov and see if there’s a list of approved movers. We did some homework and we found out that about 40 of the 50 states had lists of approved movers. We did some thinking. How are they putting this list together? It’s got to be exhaustive. They’ve got to be going to the files and looking things up online to see if these people are still insured and still bonded. It would be exhausting. I told my team, “You have 30 days to create an app that can do this homework for the state of Indiana.” About twenty days later my team came to me and said, “Check this out.” They had this app that ran all of the approved movers through this mechanism every 48 hours to see if they were still approved.
I ended up literally calling the state of Indiana and I said, “Here’s our website. We were wondering if you would list us in your tools and resource section.” They’re like, “I don’t know, we don’t really link out to other websites.” I said, “Do me a favor, would this help you? We created this app that lists all the approved movers, intrastate and interstate, and it automatically runs the data every 48 hours.” I thought I heard the phone drop because the lady I was talking to was the person solely responsible for doing that type of homework every single month. She goes, “Mr. Courtright, you have no idea how much time this app would save us.” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you the rights to this app for the next ten years if you don’t mind listing our website, which has this app on it under your tools and resource section.” She listed us in the tools and resources section, which showed Google a link from Indiana.gov to our moving website. Why did she so quickly and effortlessly give us a link from a .gov to our website? It’s simple, I gave to her what she’s been chasing. She’s been chasing a better way to save time to do these credibility checks of these movers so I made it for her. I didn’t call her and ask her if she wanted. I knew she’d want it. I did my own homework and found out that’s what she wants.
Let’s go to the second one. Do you want a big shot or a celebrity to endorse you? What does every celebrity need now? They need more money. How do they get more money? Celebrities get paid per movie by what is called their draw. How many people are going to go watch that movie? One of the ways Hollywood now determines their draw is by how many people are following them on social media. If people have half a million people following them on social media and they’re a B actress or a B actor, they get so much money. If they got a million, they get more money. If they get two million, they get more. If they have four million, they are now automatically an A-player and they get even more. Why not build a Facebook fan page or a Twitter profile page and start building a list of people that are also in love with such and such celebrity?
I could easily see me building an Adam Sandler page and I could use our tools, our resources, our time, our energy and in a year, I can easily have a million people following Adam Sandler. I could call him up someday and say, “Adam, check this out. I am the president of your fan club. So much of a fan, I got a million people following.” He’s going to go, “You have a million people following me on Facebook?” He’s going to turn around and say, “How can I help you?” I’m saying, “Come to think of it, if you wouldn’t mind, we just came out with this new product. You can make a mention of it to your 7.8 million people following you on Twitter.” I think he would. I brought to him what he’s chasing, which is a bigger subscriber base. How about a board of directors? Every one of these people that you want on your board is still chasing something. Find out what it is and find a way to help them get it and they’ll join your board. If you want to sell somebody something, an idea, a product, it doesn’t matter, then do some homework and bring to them what they are chasing down to get. This is Episode 197. I hope this helps. Take care.
Leave a Reply