Success Technologies
Immutable Marketing Law #3 and #4
The Law of The Mind & The Law of Perception
“It’s Better To Be First In The Mind Than First
In The Marketplace
Marketing is Not A Battle of Products It’s
A Battle Of Perceptions” – Al Reis and Jack Trout
This is a user guide to the great book
- The 22
- Immutable Laws of Marketing – Violate Them
- At Your Own Risk.
In each installment, I examine the strategies
and laws and suggest some real world and tested,
ideas and tactical steps to deploy these laws
and to make them work for you in
your own business or professional practice.
It’s common to hear people and experts tell
you what you should be doing. Relatively rare
to get real and workable ideas and action steps
on HOW to do it.
So now, on to these two laws.
As you may recall, the law of leadership says that
it’s vital, if not essential to be first in the market place
and to be the leader. Yet, the history of marketing is
full of examples of products first to the market but which
failed.
So which is it? First in mind or first to market?
According to Ries and Trout, they’re both right and
while it’s really important to be first, and to create a category
where you ARE first, it’s also true that it’s even more important to
be “first in mind,” than it is to actually be first to market.
They give the example of IBM who wasn’t first to the
world of business computers – that distinction was to
Remington Brand. But, because IBM’s marketing of the computer
was so much more effective they won the battle of first
in mind and that trumped first to the market place.
Remember “No One Ever Got Fired For Buying IBM?”
Whenever that buying decision needed to be made IBM was
top of mind,
And, their advice is that to reach top of mind and
to be first in mind requires your product or service to
be easy to remember and that it has to be blasted into
the mind like and “overnight sensation.”
This generally means that you should shoot for all three laws.
Be first to market, if you’re not, create a new category where you
are, and make your marketing bold and memorable.
This is why outrageous marketing often works and why the
market place is becoming louder and more crowed.
In todays world where we are bombarded by noise and
marketing, you need to be memorable and trustworthy
in new ways.
So let’s look at an example.
Apple was not first to market.
But, they created a new niche of personal computers, made
it desirable, distinctive and exclusive – we’re not
for everybody but movie producers, artists, and design freaks
all want us.
Eventually, the design, marketing , exclusivity and ease of use
created an amazing demand in a broader market.
They created a new type of personal computer where they
were first and they then made
it desirable, exclusive and memorable.
So how do you make this work for you?
In my own seemingly boring professional practice
it went something like this:
There were many many lawyers.
So I became a Trust and Estate and
Probate lawyer. I resisted the urge to tell people that
I could help them with many legal problems and focused on one
type.
Eventually I let people know that I was the
Chairman of my department and we called it the Trust,
Estate and Wealth Preservation Section. Making me more
memorable.
That was after some research where we found out what was
more appealing not just to our existing clients, but to the clients
we wanted.
And so I was able to give my products and
services names to make them sexier and easy to remember.
Trusts became “Asset Protection” and “Bullet Proof Divorce Trusts”
to protect your heirs. And we created Beneficiary Controlled
Trusts since people were afraid that if they created trusts, that
a bank would be in charge,
This then allowed me to sell against other lawyers, general practice
lawyers and others who didn’t have my experience, focus, or descriptive
and proprietary products.
Then we explained that we’re not for everyone….
so we became more exclusive. And it’s true. We’re not.
But the right type of clients love us and we love them.
And as I got booked further and further out, we took a possible deficit –
you had to wait for an appointment – and made priority appointments and
explained the demand. Many people wanted what we were offering.
This confirms the perception that we are really good at what we do.
We became more desirable.
So we’ve gone through many iterations of marketing that made
it more and more desirable and more and more top of mind.
We used the fact that I appeared on radio and TV to make people
remember even more and we send them letters, emails, cd’s
and things they never gor from other lawyers so that in their
minds we are in a category of our own.
Sound expensive?
Well, not as much as you might think and we can and do charge more
than many competitors because we can deliver so much more.
So you need to do marketing in a way that creates and maintains the
perception that your product or service is the most desirable
solution to a problem faced by your niche.
We create a perception that we are great at what we do and that we’re
focused. We then cement that perception with on going
contact and by giving clients what they want before, during,
and after their appointments.
And we do it in a way, with books, cds, letters, post cards from our trips
and other things that no one else does. So they remember us and we’re
first in mind.
Need to know more about how perceptions are formed and how language can
and is used to shape and maintain perception? Visit
www.Persuasion2Profit.com for access to one of my top selling programs on
persuasion and influence.