Category Archives for "Marketing Strategy"

The Coming Facebook Snowflake Apocalypse

A couple of weeks ago, President Mark Zuckerberg announced ginormous changes to the Facebook news feed algorithm.

By the reaction, you’d have thought he announced a new Terms of Service that allows Facebook to take your first born.

People are flippin’ out about this change (basically Facebook is prioritizing posts from friends and family over public content in the News Feed).

A good friend of mine owns a company that manages social media campaigns for businesses. She’s been blasted with emails and phone calls from clients all wanting to know the same thing…

“What does this mean?”

Her answer (which is the right one by the way) is “I don’t know yet.”

But that doesn’t stop all sorts of so-shill media pseudo-experts from jumping on their high horses and ranting on about how this is the end of Fakebook, how this is gonna screw business owners, and making other hysterical claims.

Personally, I find it highly amusing to watch all these snowflakes whip each other up into frenzy and get their panties in a bunch over things they can’t control and, in reality, know little about.

But if we can melt the snowflakes away for a moment, I can tell you exactly what this Fakebook nonsense means for your business…

1. Marketing platforms, tactics, websites, etc. change.

All. The. Time.

When this happens, there are winners and there are losers.

The losers are the ones who cry and complain about the way things used to be… How the changes screwed them over… And how they want things to go back to the way they were.

The winners adapt.

2. If your marketing is built on platforms others control, then you are much more vulnerable when those platforms make changes.

If Fakebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. is the center of your marketing universe, your business is dangling off the edge of a cliff.

One slight jolt to the landscape and you’re going over and down… hard!

(Even moreso if you’re relying on their organic or “free” traffic. Paying for traffic is safer cuz these companies gotta make their shareholders happy.)

That’s why it’s so important to own and control your own marketing platform (i.e. your website, your email list).

When you use those as the primary means to communicate with/market to your tribe, you’re on much more stable ground.

The Difference Between a $6K and a $25M Pay Day

This story, from marketing legend Jay Abraham, should be required reading for anyone involved in marketing.

It’s the story of two gents who each went into the cubic zirconium business years ago.

Both sprung for full page ads in the LA Times… back when it was just a newspaper (that’s like a news website printed out on paper for you young ‘uns).

One of the guys, we’ll call him Stu, was a phenomenal copywriter. Because Stu was so talented with words, his ad kicked butt.

So Stu got a nice little pay day off the initial sales from his ad. In fact, he strolled away making around $6K on the deal.

For Stu, however, that wasn’t a great pay day. So he decided to leave the cubic zirconium business and look for greener pastures.

The other guy (we’ll call him Cash) didn’t have the copywriting chops that Stu did. In fact, Cash LOST money on his full pager based on the initial sales.

But Cash had an advantage. While he wasn’t as a good a copywriter as Stu, he was a brilliant marketing STRATEGIST.

When he mailed the cubic zirconiums to his customers, this is what he did…

He shipped the stones in a fancy velvet jeweler’s bag inside a simulated wooden box.

He also included a letter and a brochure in the package.

The letter went something like this…

“Thank you for investing in our diamond. When you open your package and take out your 1 carat stone, 2 things will be evident.

The first is that it’s more fiery brilliant than you were expecting.

And, second, it’s going to look smaller than you were expecting.

But it’s not because we cheated you, it’s because our stones have more density and are a higher quality than most.

When our clients see how magnificent their stone is, the vast majority want to order larger ones.

And then when they get them, they have another problem… they want to get the stones set but jewelers charge an arm and a leg to do this.

So as a courtesy to our valued clients, we’ve put aside some of our exquisite 5, 10, and 15 carat stones, set them in necklaces, rings, etc. and priced them at approximately half of what the average jeweler would charge for the same settings.

Because we’re sorry for any inconvenience, we’re happy to let you trade in the stone you just purchased and get double credit toward any other stone you want to buy from us.”

**********

Based on this brilliant strategy, Cash went on to bank about $25M worth of cubic zirconium sales!

Such is the difference between strategy and tactics.

Tactics get most of the attention.

They’re fun.

Exciting.

Sexy.

There’s always some new one to try.

The truth is any marketing tactic can, and does, work… newspaper ads, Google ads, Facebook, direct mail, email, LinkedIn, etc.

But ultimately the question of WHETHER they work and HOW WELL they work comes down to strategy.

Focus your efforts accordingly.