Affluent Consumer Entrapment
“Creativity is over-rated. Most business success comes from doing boring diligent work. From developing a system that produces consistent results and sticking to it.”
—RAY KROC
You need a direct-marketing system.
Here I lack space and time to belabor these points as I do in other works of mine, but here are two vital facts: One, all wealth derived from business is based on systems. Two, most businesses have some sort of operations system but lack the more valuable marketing system. To be successful attracting and marketing to the affluent, you will need to spend more per prospective customer, client, or patient (reasonable in light of their greater value), so you cannot afford to let any of them slip through your fingers. Further, they judge your competence and trustworthiness from the outset, so how organized you are in your marketing influences their willingness to do business with you. For these and other reasons, you need a direct-marketing system.
What is such a thing? As its name implies, it directly reaches out to, connects with, and brings the desired prospective customer, client, or patient to you.
All systems use bait to lure the desired creature into the trap. I’ll switch to more elegant language in a few minutes, but for starters, tolerate my being deliberately coarse and simplistic with a basic example. Consider the company Fisher Investments, by my standards and my clients’ standards, it has a primitive and simplistic system, but it will do as the basic example, and if you stop to think about it, you are probably aware of the company. It is a multi-product investment and money-under-management firm aiming at mass-affluent and affluent (but not ultra-affluent) investors. Its advertised floor is investable assets of $500,000.00 or more. You’ve probably seen TV commercials, magazine ads, USA Today ads, or The Wall Street Journal ads, or possibly received direct-mail solicitations. All that advertising does is offer bait to lure you into the trap. The bait is one or more free reports, like The 9 Mistakes Affluent Investors Make, a free audio CD, a free DVD, or a package of all that information. The titles and promises of what you will discover from these things are the real bait. You will discover lies your current broker, banker, financial planners are telling you, taxes you are paying unnecessarily, safe but high-yield investments you don’t know about. You will get this from a highly credible and authoritative source. That’s the bait. Whom is that bait for? Relatively new mass-affluents with little knowledge or confidence about investing. People who are aware they should be investing their money but do not know what to do or whom to trust. Affluent people frustrated with stock market ups and downs or losses.
My comments mean no judgment, pro or con, about Fisher Investments as an investment firm. I have no firsthand knowledge and no opinion. I am only making observations in my area of expertise—marketing—and using Fisher’s as example. Incidentally, Ken Fisher himself is a featured guest speaker at one of our two member conventions in 2019, speaking not only about money but also about the marketing that has raised his firm to number one. If you happen to be reading this early enough in 2019, you’ll find information about the conference at www.Superconference19.com. If past March 2019, all other, next conferences’ information gets posted at www.NoBSInnerCircle.com in its time. The reason we invited Ken is salient whether the time of his appearance is ahead or behind us: His company is a lead generation monster, and I mean that in a good way. It successfully defies the common but erroneous idea that affluent people won’t respond to straightforward lead generation and direct marketing.
Fisher’s bait lures those particular creatures into a trap. By design, there are a lot of creatures it does not lure, such as those with less than $500,000.00 to invest, or those cemented in place with existing money advisor relationships.
The trap is a place where the creature’s name, address, email address, fax number, and phone number are captured and, of utmost importance, permission to use this information is secured.
Dan Kennedy’s #10 No B.S. Key to the Vault
The most valuable asset is a list of high-value customers and prospective customers who invite and welcome communication from you.
Additional information may also be asked for and captured at a trap, such as age or occupation or income, so as to assign the captured creature to a different sub-trap, to be shown and fed slightly different sales messages appropriate to him. From there, a follow-up process begins. In Fisher’s case, it is simplistic; the package sent more of an excuse for immediate and direct follow-up by telephone agents than anything else. We can do better and be more sophisticated, as I’ll show you. Still, what Fisher does is effective and successful for that company. The website is the ideal trap medium, as it allows us to automate this entire process, even to the point of the customer doing his own data entry work for us. But a recorded message and voicemail, a call taken by a live human, or a reply form or card returned by fax or mail can all serve as traps as well.
Before going further, there is one very important point to be made. Fisher Investments, targeting mass-affluent and affluent investors, in order to then offer professional money management services, does exactly the same things as, for example, TempurPedic® does to cast a much broader net and then sell mattresses, or the lowest of low-end “burial insurance for just 50 cents a day” companies advertising on TV do to target the very non-affluent and then sell a term insurance policy. Regardless of what they are selling or whom they are selling to, virtually all direct marketers do the same thing structurally: They use bait to lure desired creatures into a trap. The only changes are to the bait. You need the right bait for the desired creature. There is no creature that can’t be lured into a trap with the right bait. Let me say it again: There is NO creature that can’t be lured into a trap. With the RIGHT bait.
Now, we’ll get more sophisticated, and use more elegant language, with which you may feel more comfortable!
Our direct-marketing system, just like the previous examples, will extend an invitation designed for a specific audience via a variety of means and media. You might use any or all of these to extend your invitation:
• Print advertising in newspapers, magazines, newsletters, or other publications
• Banner advertising at others’ websites
• Buying traffic for your website with Google™ Ads® or other means; pay per click
• Using publicity to get articles about you placed in different publications and media
• Direct mail to rented or compiled mailing lists
• Email to opt-in lists
• Radio or television advertising
And I could list a hundred more options.
Regardless of means or media, in every place, the same invitation is extended. It is kept simple and clean. It is NOT an attempt to sell your products or services at all. It is an invitation for the recipient to request and be provided something of relevance, interest, and value to him, free of charge. The more appealing and specifically relevant the item offered, the better the response.
In recent years, I’ve taken to calling this INFO-FIRST MARKETING, meaning that information of interest to desired customers, clients, or patients is put forward first—sometimes completely concealing the product or service to subsequently be presented, sometimes with such disclosure. This supports Step 1, usually called LEAD GENERATION by direct marketers.
The individuals accepting your invitation arrive at your “place,” and enter your foyer. And only the foyer. They are not permitted to roam the mansion as they please. The foyer is a nice place, be it a website, recorded message, live human on the phone, or something like an exhibit booth at a consumer or business exposition or even your store, showroom, or office. But in many cases, it’s a website or the handling of an incoming call. There, they sign the guest book. That means they provide the information you want, in exchange for receiving the appealing information or gifts you offered them in your invitation. Think of the foyer as nicely appointed, with the guest book on a big, gold podium, with a spotlight shining on it. But nothing else is there. It is premature to display product, describe services, talk price, or do anything else but get the guest book filled out.
At a website foyer, there may be what’s called in internet lingo a double-squeeze page. It’s actually two guest books. First, the person is asked only for his email address, thus reducing the request to one item. In exchange, he may get an email newsletter, ebook, or something else electronically delivered. When he provides his email address, a door opens and a butler appears with yet a second guest book. In other words, a fresh landing page materializes, now asking for a full physical address, possibly fax, possibly phone, and possibly additional questionnaire-type information. In exchange, the person will then be sent offline a package of information, materials, and gifts, likely including a book and/or an audio CD and/or a DVD. This strategy winds up creating two different lists for follow-up: 1) the timid and likely only curious or mildly interested people willing to provide only an email address and 2) the more compliant, likely more interested, and likely better prospects willing to provide all their information. And depending on what information they provided, they may be further divided. We’ll get there.
Now that they have signed the guest book or guest books, one of two things may occur immediately. One, they may be thanked, promised that the information they asked for will arrive in a few days, and politely ushered out. Or, two, they may be given the option of entering a very short corridor that provides access to only one or two rooms. Again, not free run of the whole mansion. There might be a nice little reading room, where they can read their ebook. Or a little theater where they can watch a short film, possibly of happy customers giving their testimonials. There is usually no direct, instant path into a showroom or salesman’s office where selling them is immediately attempted, although there are exceptions to this, including on the internet.
Step 2, then, is CAPTURE IN THE TRAP.
What I have described so far has many virtues. It alters your advertising from being product- or service-directed to being customer-directed. It automates everything, so you or staff members are not engaged in unproductive, repetitive manual labor. It gives the prospect a nonthreatening, satisfying experience devoid of sales pressure. It provides you with a very valuable asset, a database of people who’ve stepped forward, raised their hands, and identified themselves as interested prospects. Finally, if you wish, it allows you to run smaller, simpler ads, keeping the front-end costs low and investing most of your resources only in interested prospects.
If this is new and unfamiliar to you, I can only urge you to stop and carefully reread it, as there are ways it can go awry. And I encourage you to go to traps offered by sophisticated direct marketers and experience their entire systems for yourself. The best—and cheapest—way to learn this methodology is by playing prospect with companies doing lead-generation advertising.
Next, a series of proactive follow-up steps occur, from you, the marketer, to the prospective customer, client, patient, or investor.
We have prospects who have signed the guest book. We may treat them all the same and assign them all to the same follow-up communications program. Or we may divide them in some way, assigning different ones to different Follow-Up Communications Programs. Regardless, they will all get a series or sequence of multi-media follow-up communications, all designed to persuade them to take one next step. In rare cases, that step might be making a purchase. In many, it will be scheduling some sort of appointment; coming to your place of business or inviting you or your sales representative to their office or home; attending a seminar, webinar, or teleseminar; completing and returning an application. Whatever. Everything moves the prospects toward this one next step. Typically, there will be a deadline for taking that step, with rewards for doing so and penalties for not doing so. A sample series of follow-up contacts might look like this:
Day 1 after having signed guest book |
Send requested book, brochure, and DVD. Send email acknowledging request and telling them package is on its way. |
Days 2–10 |
Daily email, a lesson in a course on wise buying/investing/using the sort of thing being sold … tips plus reminder of offer. |
Day 4 |
A letter with a booklet of customer testimonials … encouraging them to review everything sent. |
Days 5, 7, 9 |
Three jumbo postcards, each focusing on a different benefit. |
Day 10 |
“Only five days left” letter with encouragement to go to a website and view ten-minute special presentations. |
Days 12, 13, 14 |
“Countdown to deadline” emails. |
Day 15 |
Representative places outbound call. |
Day 16 |
Email extending deadline and inviting them to 30-minute webinar and group question-and-answer session. |
Day 19 |
“Last chance” letter with CD or DVD of the webinar. |
Day 21 |
Representative calls again. |
Day 25 |
“Offer withdrawn notice” letter. |
Months 2–5 |
General email newsletter, once a week. |
Month 6 |
New series of letters or postcards extending original invitation and inviting them to reraise hand and start process over with free information. |
What I’ve just laid out is still somewhat simplistic, compared with the systems my businesses and many of my clients’ businesses use. These systems may divide up the prospects to begin with and send different communications to 2, 4, or 20 groups. Those not responding to the entire system may be moved at its end to the start of another one, leading to the sale of a lower-priced or higher-priced or otherwise altered version of the product or service or an entirely different product or service.
The follow-up is where the giant opportunity is, because most businesses do little or no follow-up whatsoever. Response develops through follow-up. Whatever the response from a single attempt, it tends to as much as double with the second and third follow-up attempts, and double again with the fourth through whatever follow-up steps. So, if you got a 1% response from mailing out a package of information to a group of prospects, you would likely get another 1% or better from the second and third follow-up steps combined, and yet another 1% or better from the subsequent follow-up steps combined. If you begin with 1,000 prospects, that’s 10 sales if you contact them only once or 30 or more with comprehensive follow-up. If you sell a $1,000.00 item, you’re choosing between obtaining $10,000.00 or $30,000.00 or more from the same group of prospects.
When marketing to the affluent, this math changes, favoring follow-up even more. While many prospect groups’ yield might be flat: 1%+1%+1%, an especially affluent prospects groups’ yield might be tiered: .25%+2%+5%. It takes more communication and more time to directly create trust with affluent customers. Because their value is greater, the added investment of more steps in follow-up is easily justifiable and usually a bigger economic win.
Once somebody understands the virtues of this kind of system, does he hurry to develop his and get it working for his business? Candidly, no.
Problems and Solutions
There are three chief reasons that, frankly, the vast majority of marketers shown this systematic-approach fail to develop it for their own businesses. My book No B.S. Direct Marketing: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Direct Marketing for Non-Direct Marketing Businesses includes many inspiring and amazing case histories from people in a variety of non-direct-marketing businesses who have done the work necessary to transform their businesses this way, and I urge you to read it. And they are representative of experiences and results typical among all the No B.S. Inner Circle Members who follow this path. But I’ll be the first to tell you they are rare birds. Here’s why.
Problem 1. It’s work, to get it built, tested, and working for you successfully. Sadly and stupidly, most people would rather spend every day of their entire lives chopping wood manually with a dull axe, complaining all the while, than turn off the TV and put in a few extra hours a night for a few months building an axe-sharpening device or, better yet, an electric, power wood-cutting machine.
Problem 2. It’s complicated. Most people desperately want a magic pill, not a diet regimen incorporating food choices, portion control, nutritional supplementation, and exercise. That, incidentally, is why 99% of the fat folk stay fat. In business, it’s the same thing. There’s rarely a single, simple magic pill-like solution to any problem or exploitation of any opportunity. There’s even virtue in possessing a complicated process, as most competitors will be too lazy and simple-minded to copy it, even if it is successful and shown to them.
Problem 3. Specific to marketing to the affluent—the higher up in affluence you go, the more protected are the prospects. Gatekeepers screen the communications you try to send to them. There are obstacles in your way. It is not necessarily easy to reach out to them and attract them. Also specific to the affluent—the higher up in affluence you go, the less responsive to advertising and more responsive to peer recommendations ad referrals people are.
Now, for what it’s worth, the solutions …
For Problem 1, work. What we are talking about here is nothing less than the transformation of your business from random acts of marketing that produce erratic and unpredictable results to a machine that runs dependably and efficiently, day in and day out, much of it automatically. Ownership of such a machine is a wonderful thing. But you can’t expect to build such an enormously valuable thing for yourself with nominal effort or investment. You will need to, first, thoroughly understand it, and then experiment with specific application to your business.
For Problem 2, embrace the complexity! It’s a source of power. But, to be fair, the actual mechanics of managing the prospects (databases) and the multi-step, multi-media follow-up with color-coded file folders and Post-It® notes or ordinary contact management software can be messy. There is one software system that has been built from the ground up to manage, automate, implement, and track exactly these kinds of marketing systems, specifically my designed systems—and only one. It is called Infusionsoft, and I urge you to investigate it. Free demonstrations are available (see Resource Box). In the interest of full disclosure, I am a stockholder in and advisor to the company.
Recommended Resource
Infusion Software is the only all-in-one database, contact, customer relationship management program designed to support any business’s implementation of a Kennedy-style direct marketing system. Information at: www.Infusionsoft.com/Kennedy.
Problem 3 requires two things. One, appearing in the places where your affluent prospects pay the most attention. This will lead to different media choices than, say, your regular daily newspaper, mass-circulation magazines, or run-of-day TV or radio advertising. Two, direct mail to carefully selected lists using more elaborate pieces and delivery means than ordinary mail. In business-to-business environments, you may need specific strategies for the professional gatekeepers. The good news is, there tends to be less clutter in their mailboxes because the majority of marketers give up. You should not be deterred by this difficulty; it is in proportion to the value of the customer or client to be obtained. And make no mistake: the affluent customer or client can be drawn to the trap with clever direct marketing. The investment advisor currently managing my retirement funds started the process of securing me as a client with a direct-mail piece including a large roll of duct tape inside a plastic bag, delivered via FedEx.
A maid service solicits homeowners in an exceptionally affluent neighborhood by delivering DVD players preloaded with a 20-minute DVD of its clients’ testimonials, filmed in the clients’ luxury homes. It reported to me a 30% response rate from this campaign. This approach not only delivered media that could not easily be ignored or casually tossed in the trash but also addressed the fact that affluent customers rely more on referrals than on advertising, by delivering simulated referrals—clients like them, possibly known to them, speaking to them on the DVD from their own homes. Such social proof from true peers can successfully bridge the gap between advertising and the affluent client’s preference for peer recommendations. This company has now moved this into a marketing system like I’ve described in this chapter, driving affluent homeowners into its website trap to request the DVD, or view it instantly there, and download free reports about care of antique furniture, stain removal from custom-made rugs, and similar topics.
If you are one of the rare birds who commit to development and implementation of this kind of direct-marketing system, you’ll soon be sending me similar success reports.
No B.S. Direct-Marketing System
