The Number One Secret Ingredient To Any Promotion

If you could have only one ingredient, let this be it.

By Robert Provencher

Years ago one of the brightest and most respected marketers, Gary Halbert, challenged his marketing workshop attendees with this scenario: "You own a hamburger stand. You can have any competitive angle you want. Anything. Name it. What would that one thing be? Would it be a great location? A great recipe delivering an awesome burger? Etc etc..."

He challenged them to think about this, and he then revealed the one thing he would want, above anything else, above the perfect location, the perfect product, the perfect pitch, and it would be this: "give me a starving crowd."

Makes perfect sense when you think about it, doesn't it? When you find a hungry market, and you deliver a product or service that that market would want, you have won 90% of the marketing battle. Finding the starving crowd is key.

Do brides want what you have? Are you offering something they would trip over themselves to hear more about? Better yet, book you out without delay? What about parents with babies. Do they perk up and listen to what you have to offer when you offer it, ready to act and have a session done?

It used to be all most folks wanted was a portrait. Just about anything would do since us photogs were a rare breed and we had magical, wizard-like powers.

Nowadays, we have to work extra hard to maintain that perception and we can do this not only with the uniqueness of our work, but also by the energy in our marketing.

The key here is to deliver something they want. They sometimes may not even know they want it, until they hear or see it from you. This can often be the simple fact that you take great photographs of people. And are fun, exciting and entertaining while doing that.

Photographers from decades ago didn't have to be so multi-talented. Much of their work was limited through the chemical and optical challenges inherent in photography. They had to work very hard at the very things we can achieve with ease.

Nowadays, we have so much creativity and power available to us, we can create just about anything we want. Problem is, so can many other folks. The solution, in my humble opinion, is to have a product that shines above and beyond anything the average Joe can create, combined with marketing that also shines.

I am not talking about having a great logo and cool letterhead. It takes more than just image stuff to give your marketing power.

Find the starving crowd, offer them your solution, and don't be shy about it. Be aggressive, be different, be bold and don't let your ego get in the way. When you have the right offer to the starving crowd, don't cloud it or build walls around it, trying to obscure the path to success.

The path from point A to point B can be very straight and fast.

What do I mean by straight and fast? Let me give you an example from my own past experience in our studio. We mailed, and continue to do so to this day, sales letters to new parents, pitching our babies first year wall panel.

At first we kept it simple. We only mailed one page, two sides, photocopied 8.5"x11, in an envelope, with an old fashioned spit glued stamp. We still use this system, but now we've upped the sales letter to full color, and four pages.

Costs us more, but so does our product. This worked like gangbusters. We found the 'starving crowd'. Heck, I didn't even have a logo, nor did I have full color brohures, flash websites, and such. We simply found the starving crowd, and instead of zigzagging all over trying to get to them, we took the straightest, leanest path to them and delivered our best offer using the cheapest media we could get away with.

This works with whatever target market you are after. High or low end. Matters not.

If they are starving, feed them. If they don't want what you have, then you have other issues to look at. The big mistake here is not only failing to go after them, but remaining obscure and relying on vague or sublime marketing messages with a heavy slant towards expensive image ads.

I don't buy the argument for 'branding', when all too often the person going on about branding fails to recognize that the foundation of their success may be that they found the starving crowd, knowingly or not, or succeeded because of a dynamic product and outstanding personality, and never really knowing how and why the dynamics of these success ingredients played in the whole scheme of things, and the say that it was all 'branding'.

Baloney. Branding is an effect, not the reason why. It's like commitment in a relationship. Commitment is a by-product of a good relationship, not something that is forced. It just happens when everything else is in place. Of course we forge that commitment with rituals like taking vows and such.

I am not against great branding tools. Don't get me wrong. I simply am arguing for getting things done in the right order and giving credence to where the real dynamics are. Targeting and honing in on a starving crowd, whether you discover it or create it, is genius. Do that, and half the battle is won. And if you want to bring your brand into the message, then do it.

 

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