Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Over 100 years ago, ad man, John Kennedy, famously defined advertising as:

“Salesmanship In Print.”

And while I don’t 100% agree with that definition — as it over-emphasizes “reason why” selling and dismisses the importance of bonding and distinctiveness — there’s still a lot of truth in it.

Persuasive principles that work in sales can also work very powerful in advertising messaging.

Take the classic copywriting formula of Pain-Agitate-Solution.

1. Identify and evoke a pain (or problem) the prospect suffers from
2. Focus on the pain and “agitate,” causing the customer to recall and freshly feel the frustration, anger, embarrassment, loss, etc. caused by that particular pain.
3. Provide the solution and show how much better life will be with the solution.

Consult most any TV Infomercial to see this formula in action.

So now that we’ve covered the formula, how do you supercharge it?

Remember and apply The Universal Appeals.

1. It’s not your fault, and
2. You are special

By all means, identify and agitate the pain — but give your audience a psychological out.

It’s “not your fault” that you’re experiencing these difficulties.

Why?

Depends on the case, but reasons why “it’s not your fault” could range from:

• The experts / industry lied to you or set you up for failure
• Everybody in your position experiences them
• You’re experiencing them precisely because you’re special

Then, when you present the solution, offer it up as an ideal solution for special people, just like your prospect.

For example:

You’re probably tired of being on the Pay-Per-Crack treadmill, where you are paying more and more for digital leads of low quality, just to keep your growing company fed with new business.

And that’s not your fault because PPC is always the first step of new business to get leads, and it’s a mix of the industry’s greed and fierce competition that keeps costs high and steadily rising higher.

Moreover, it’s almost impossible to get high-quality leads from customers who only hear about you when they’re actively ready to buy.

And that means PPC leads are all-but-guaranteed to be low quality.

The good news is that if you’re looking for a solution instead of complaining about it, you’re one of the few business owners smart enough to consider alternatives like branding.

Granted, it’s not easy. But if it was easy, everyone would do it. Which is precisely what makes it your secret weapon

Because business owner capable of investing in long-term branding are the smart ones who will eventually take charge of their lead-flow and grow to dominate their business.

Just so long as they’re smart enough to partner with an expert in guiding owner-operated businesses like theirs in launching effective mass media branding campaigns powered by high-impact ads.

And that’s how you supercharge your sales message.

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A recurrent theme in discussions about sales management and production lines is addressing flaws effectively. In a production line, pinpointing the root cause is crucial when something goes wrong. In sales management, pinpointing the root cause is vital when something goes wrong,

Let’s create a simple mental model of what a “customer” production line might look like in the home services industry.

• Does the prospective customer have a preferred brand they think of immediately and feel best about when the need occurs?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you directly? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer already know your brand?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer do a branded search online for you? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer self-book an appointment on your website?  Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer do a generic search online for you? Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you from an online ad?  Yes or no
  • Does the prospective customer call you after engaging with your website? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer call and speak with a CSR? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer book an appointment? Yes or no
• Does your team dispatch the appointment? Yes or no
• Does your team arrive on time for the appointment?  Yes or no
• Does your team inspire trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does your team offer them a solution that builds trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does your team offer them multiple options to purchase/finance? Yes or no
• Does the prospective customer agree to one of the options? Yes or no
• Does your team complete the job effectively and build more trust and confidence? Yes or no
• Does the customer feel your team did a great job fulfilling your brand promise? Yes or no
• Does your customer leave a 5-star review? Yes or no
• Does your customer recommend you to others? Yes or no

Each step has a yes or no answer that can be counted. The length and quality of the interactions can also be measured, but that’s for a different article.

Each step can be the root cause of your failure or success. At each step, you can turn a prospective customer into an actual customer or not.

Filling The Sales Funnel Won’t Reliably Produce More Customers

Imagine a funnel with a pinprick at the bottom. No matter how much you pour in from the top, the small opening at the bottom will limit your output. This represents a fundamental concept in both production and sales. If there’s a bottleneck or flaw at any stage of the process, it hampers the entire operation.

This concept applies to businesses as well. Companies often think increasing leads or having more resources at the top of the funnel will fix their issues. However, if they don’t address the inefficiencies and bottlenecks throughout the system, these efforts may only provide temporary gains.

For instance, businesses emerging from a period of low demand might ramp up efforts to generate more leads. However, if the backend processes aren’t optimized, the surge in demand could overwhelm the system, leading to more problems that screw up sustainable growth. You need a balanced approach where the funnel’s top and bottom are addressed concurrently.

Sales Funnels Are Also Production Lines That Produce Customers

The sales funnel is more akin to a production line than a simple numbers game. Fixing issues at the top without considering the bottom won’t lead to long-term success. Executives must manage both ends of the funnel carefully to ensure a smooth and efficient process.

You build sustainable growth by addressing the root causes and optimizing the entire system. This balanced approach helps businesses navigate the complexities of their operations. Don’t just patch up the surface issues; to succeed, solve the more profound systemic problems.

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In many ways, the following tweet can be seen to represent solid advertising advice:

Note though, that this advice is more innovative and entrepreneurial in nature. The tweet is telling you how to introduce a new product or service to the market.

And her advice is to focus on WIIFM — What’s In It For Me — where “Me” means the prospective customer base.

Here’s how my new product or service will make YOUR life better.

In her opinion, this is a better messaging than “Here’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

The contrasting advice can be seen in the imagery for this fantastic ad for agency, Crispin & Porter:

One sign is undoubtedly more persuasive than the other. But why?

The right-hand sign certainly doesn’t rely on WIIFM for its appeal.

Instead, it relies on bonding.

Because, yes, people DO care about other humans that they’re able to connect with on a human level.

And you’d be well advised to bake that appeal into your advertising as well.

Reconciling This Advice for Maximum Effectiveness

The way to get the best of both worlds is to indeed appeal to customers’ self interest while also providing them with your emotional compulsions for making that offer.

Because a compelling offer made by a company or person you don’t quite trust is an offer that you’ll pretty much never consider, let alone take.

You, as the buyer, need to understand “what’s in it for them, the business owner.”

You also need to know “why can I trust you.”

And the better the offer, the more these other factors come into play.

This is what makes telling your origin story so powerful, as it establishes the WHY behind the WHAT.

“I’m making this amazing offer because it’s a manifestation of my core values and mission.”

The more your offer reinforces your core identity, and the more your identity and offer matches with the customer’s identity, the more powerful the response.

Adding a Third Leg to Your Advertising Stool

While an ad campaign with both reason-why and bonding appeals is enough to generate massive response, it’s not the best you can do.

You can also add in differentiation through brand codes.

Bonding is about your inner identity.

Differentiation is about your outer, sensible identity — looking and sounding distinctively different from the competition, so that anyone seeing or hearing your ads instantly recognizes them as uniquely your ads.

This is mainly done through the intelligent and persistent use of Brand Codes:

• Brandable Chunks
• Ear-wormy sonic cues
• Logos
• Distinct and recognizable characters and mascots
• Music
• Packaging, uniforms, truck wraps, etc.

And you can visualize the three major factors of advertising success like this:

What’s In YOUR Ad Campaign?

So what about your advertising?

Do you make use of WIIFM appeals and Bonding and Brand Codes?

If not, you’re missing out on one or two key factors and undermining the effectiveness of your efforts.

Want to change that?

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“When I’m looking for something, I just Google it.”

That’s a phrase that seems obvious because it matches our personal experiences.

With 8.5 billion Google searches each day, yours are at least 4 or 5 of them.

But it wasn’t the first thing you did.

Extra awesome info in the video – don’t miss it!

In his book “How Customers Think,” Dr. Gerald Zaltman of Harvard says 95% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously. That odd quirk of our brains means that we’ve already decided… before we decided.

If that’s tough to understand, think of this: You’re on a family trip. Kids are exhausted. Spouse is barking orders.

As you drive past restaurants, your options are:

• Findley’s Restaurant
• Blotto’s Burgers
• Applebee’s
• Tiny’s Taco Truck

Those other places are likely fine, and Applebee’s is nothing special. But you’re exhausted, stressed, and you don’t have the energy to make decisions. 8 times out of 10, you’re picking Applebee’s.

You recognize the name, you know what to expect, and your risk is low.

Brains want to make decisions quickly. The more processing power your brain uses, the less effective it can be doing other things.

The business that comes to mind first, is the one that tends to get chosen disproportionately more often.

And, yes, it happens in search, too. In their study The Secret Life of Search, analysts at Red C Marketing found “most Google searches…resulted in a familiar, trusted, credible brand being chosen for the first click. […] It’s clear that raising awareness and trust in your brand is an essential part of getting clicks.”

The percentage wasn’t insignificant. A full 82% chose the brand they were familiar with as the first choice. This is consistent regardless of the business category.

You can empty your bank account and give it all to Google, and the click is still going to the known brand 8 out of 10 times.

Brands like SoFi, AirBNB, 4Imprint, Doordash, and Booking.com are ones you’ve seen advertised all over. The thing they all have in common is that they don’t exist outside the internet. They are online companies for an online world accessed only online. Yet the ads you see are not on Google. They’re someplace else.

These brands, smartly, are getting into your brain before you need them.

This is the world you want to own. The part of the brain that is filing information away for a future day, ready to jump into action when the need arises.

This is the real “first” thing you do. Google? It’s still in the top 10…but it will never be number one.

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Rolex has just over 30% of the luxury watch market share — with sales greater than the next five biggest players combined.

And, if anything, that underestimates Rolex’s dominance.

For watches costing over $10K, Rolex and Patek Philippe have a combined market share of 70%.

All while Rolex intentionally limits production of its watches!

Ask a non-watch enthusiast to name a luxury brand and Rolex will likely top the list.

They are, without a doubt, the most powerful and influential watch company in the world.

So… it’s natural to ask: why and how that came to be?

Really, it goes back to the founder, Hans Wilsdorf, and his ability to craft a powerful brand identity by choosing what NOT to focus on.

See, Wilsdorf was a massive Anglophile. It’s why he named his second watch brand Tudor.

Also, Wilsdorf personally identified as a merchant and not a horologist or watchmaker.

So his conception of a watch was decidedly Anglo-Saxon, as opposed to continental.

Meaning he saw a wristwatch as a TOOL, not an object d’art.

And if you see a watch as a tool, here’s what you DON’T focus on:

• Decorated movements
• Display case backs (for showing off decorated movements)
• Refined dress watch proportions and thinness
• Grand Complications
• Precious metals (Rolex makes watches in gold and platinum, but it’s not their mainstay)

Horologists or watchmakers would naturally focus on this stuff. But an anglophile merchant like Wilsdorf wouldn’t and indeed didn’t.

And this is a radical departure for a luxury watch, as most of the other established brands obsessively focus on these very qualities, precisely because they see what they create as refined cultural artifacts — like a Rembrandt you can wear on your wrist.

But if you see a watch as a tool, what you DO focus on is:

• Accuracy
• Rugged reliability
• Water Proofing
• The non-fussiness of automatic winding
• Durable, all-metal bracelets instead of fancy leather straps.
• “Professional” watch models aimed at explorers, pilots, and divers

Just think about Rolex’s most iconic watch models — the Datejust, Day-Date, GMT, Submariner, Explorer, Daytona, etc — and you’ll see that they fit this bill perfectly

This is why every model Rolex, even if it’s solid gold and gem-encrusted, is 100 meters water resistant with a screw-down crown, shock-proof, and chronometer-certified.

In contrast, it wasn’t until the 70s that Rolex’s luxury watchmaking counterparts started making steel, water-proof sports watches with bracelets, e.g., A&P’s Royal Oak, Patek’s Nautilus, and Vacheron’s Overseas.

So if you want to know why Rolex became THE luxury watch to own in the U.S. and UK, it’s because Rolex’s conception of a watch perfectly matched the consumer’s conception of what an expensive watch should be.

Go figure that a watch brand built around Anglo-Saxon sensibilities would become a best-seller in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Just understand that a lot of high-end watch snobs consider Rolex as entry-level, precisely because Rolex doesn’t do the things that true luxury buyers want.

If you’re in the market for a highly decorated, grand complication, Rolex ain’t gonna be your bag, baby.

So one lesson here is in Choosing Whom to Loose.

More specifically….

Who are you NOT for? Who do you NOT want as a customer?

You can’t be all things to all people.

But you CAN be the best choice for your target market.

Who are those people, and what makes you their best choice?

If you can answer these questions clearly and powerfully, you are well on your way to having a strong brand.

Focus as intently on what you WON’T do, as what you will.

You will be more easily defined by what you stand against than by what you stand for.

And choosing what you don’t do will put a fine point on that.

For example, when they started, McDonald’s ONLY sold hamburgers and fries in a world where most casual restaurants sold a bit of everything.

Similarly, Dominos only did delivery pizza and Subway only sold sub sandwiches.

In another category, Dell sells every conceivable model of computer and monitor, customizable in almost any way you want for almost any use-case, while Apple sells a handful of models, with limited variations, mostly geared towards “creatives.”

Which of those two is more successful? Which is the bigger brand?

Ensure The Values Embraced by Your Business Resonate with Your Audience

You may be a diamond snob who would never think of buying a created diamond. Or maybe you shudder to think of selling a stone with less than Grade D color and IF clarity.

But do your customers think that way? Do they care about those things the way you do?

Suppose your customers would gladly get a bigger, created stone with an F color and VS2 clarity.

In other words, understand that just like watch snobs are a minority of the luxury watch market, diamond snobs are a minority of the diamond market.

And matching your company values to the market values will allow you to grab a much greater market share than trying to “educate the customer” or chasing after the snobby elite.

As my mentor likes to say, “If you sell to the classes, you will live with the masses. But if you sell to the masses, you will live with the classes.”

Run Powerful Advertising

Not only did Rolex have powerfully resonant brand attributes, it also had powerful advertising campaigns that brilliantly communicating its essential brand appeals.

Indeed, Hans Wilsdorf himself believed that: “only great marketing is needed to make a company successful.”

As an example, take a look at the three Rolex ads in the header of this post.

Or take a gander at the ad to the right.

Everything in these ads is about rugged male accomplishment, as well as the rugged reliability of a Rolex watch.

And these ads are incredibly representative of the kind of campaigns that Rolex ran very aggressively during the heyday of print magazines.

Oh, and remember how Rolex and Patek shared 70% of the market for watches costing over $10K?

Would it surprise you to learn that Patek ALSO ran powerful ads, albeit ones communicating a very different brand value?

Note both how different the style of watch is from the Rolex as well as the different emotional appeal of the ad from the Rolex ad above.

So the brands that continuously ran powerful campaigns are the ones that ended up with the lion’s share of their markets. There’s definitely a lesson there.

Dominate Your Market Like Rolex

Now, you may be asking yourself how I know that these specific factors are primarily responsible for Rolex’s success.

And the answer to that lies in the decidedly NON-luxury watch market.

If you look at quartz digital watches, the two most popular brands and model lines are Casio G-Shocks and the Timex Ironman.

Why?

Because they focus on the same masculine brand attributes Rolex did:

— Rugged (and indeed Shockproof) reliability

— Waterproof cases

— Durable rubber straps

— Models aimed specifically at manly endeavors

It’s the same reason denim jeans became the standard uniform of the American male.

Now, I’m not saying YOU should focus on those same attributes.

But I am saying you should focus on those attributes that will resonate strongly with your intended audience.

And that part of communicating those attributes to your customers will involve a sharp delineation of what you stand against and what you won’t do.

If you do that, and you advertise your brand powerfully, you can come to dominate your market like Rolex.

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Your potential customers are either actively looking for a product/solution like the one you offer… or they are not.

Ty Heath of The B2B Institute says that for most businesses, at any given time, only around 5% of their potential customers are “in market” for what they offer.

This means that 95% of your potential customers are not currently looking for what you offer, but someday they might be.

One very common type of marketing – Sales Activation – attempts to gain the consumer’s awareness right as they are ready to buy. Sales Activation often uses special promotions, coupons, or product updates to elicit an immediate response from potential customers. For example, as the summer swim season approaches, you run an ad for “buy-one, get-one” swimsuits. Your ad attracts people already in the market for new swimwear, and they end up purchasing from you because of your ad.

Sales Activation primarily targets the 5% of your prospects who are already actively looking.

This type of marketing is important, and Google knows it. But just like the last-minute Christmas shoppers pay the highest price… so it is with Sales Activation. Typically, the customers you gain via promotions and coupons are the most expensive ones to gain and the most difficult ones to retain.

Please don’t hear this as an admonition against Sales Activation strategies and tools like Google Ads, because this type of marketing certainly has value and can be a very effective tool for quick growth. In fact, I typically recommend investing around 40% of your marketing budget on Sales Activation.

Of even greater importance to your business’s long-term growth, though, is Brand Building.

Brand Building will help reach the other 95% of customers who could be interested in your business at some point, though not at this moment. Brand building is about resonating with your prospects on an emotional level and establishing your business as the “best” in their minds long before they need you. This way, when they enter the market needing what you offer, they think of you first.

If you are a service-based business, this is especially important. Take the home services industry as an example. The typical household hires an HVAC tech once every 1-2 years, a plumber once every 3-4 years, and an electrician once every 9 years. If your company is not front-of-mind for these prospects when their need arises, you will likely miss out on their business.

While brand-building results are more difficult to measure than Sales Activation results, they can be immensely effective for long-term business growth.

When done well, Brand Building Marketing:

• Is Memorable. Your brand leaves an impression on people and sticks with them. When a need arises for what you offer, they think of you first.
• Invokes Loyalty. Your brand connects with your prospects on an emotional level. They feel connected to what you do/offer and why you do it. They like the way doing business with your company makes them feel about themselves. According to a study by CRS specialist Cone, 66% of Americans would switch from a product they typically buy to a new product from a purpose-driven company they align with.
• Attains Virality. Brand Building helps your company appeal not only to your potential customers but to those people connected with your potential customers. Most people have a natural inclination to help others and to come across as if they know things. If these people believe in your brand, they can become vital tools for organic marketing. For example, a 40-year-old man hears a radio ad for a Financial Service firm. The ad establishes trust and the firm’s brand resonates with him on a personal level. When his 70-year-old mother is looking for financial guidance in her twilight years, he recommends this firm to her despite having never worked with them himself.
• Creates long-term gains. Your clients who choose to do business with you because they connect with your brand typically have a higher lifetime value (LTV) for your business and better retention rates. Brand building leads to maximum long-term growth for any company.

If you are not investing in Brand Building Marketing yet, I hope you will start right away. I typically recommend clients invest around 60% of their marketing budget on brand building.

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